bong

Who said anything about eating kanthal? I still don't like kanthal. I was talking about enchor, which is the "green jackfruit". Even though it's the same fruit, it tastes quite different from kanthal. (incidentally, dishes with green jackfriuit a.k.a "enchor" is quite common in the Thai restaurants in the USA) Shukto, on the other hand, can be heavenly when done right (giving away my "ghoti" roots here...)

hmmm. do you think it was quality that did it in--though we've heard differing accounts of that--or the fact that it was so different from what an indian restaurant in the u.s is "supposed to be"? I don't know the true reason behind it's demise. Like I had reported here before, I was quite unimpressed by the quality of the restaurant, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was a significant factor... I don't buy the "no clientele" argument. Not in the SF bay area where there are plenty of people of Indian origin, and more specifically, plenty of Bengalis. Especially when the restaurant didn't really have a competition (no other restaurant here serves Bengali food).

Even though the website still exists, the restaurant is no more. It's been replaced by something else entirely. Don't think it's a big loss for me though.

Interesting. Does this use the green jackfruit (called "enchor" in Bengali) or the ripe jackfruit (called "kanthal")? I had never heard of this before, but wouldn't actually surprise me if using the green jackfruit. There are many dishes in Bengal which use "enchor". When growing up, I never used to like "enchor", which my mom would try to pass off as "vegetarian meat"! Surprisingly now that no one tries to force it one me, I actually like it.

Awesome piece Monica. It's rare that somebody writes about the real street food of any city in India. And well written, too.

I could be wrong, but this sounds to me very much like "paapri-chaat". Paapri chaat is a form of "chaat", which is the generic Hindi term for snacks, or street food. In this case, this is a chaat made with "paapri" which is what you are referring to as "pastry shell". It is possible the dish you had was some other kind of chaat. Perhaps it was a "panipuri" (in which case the "pastry shell" would be more round in shape and the sauce would have been more watery). You should be able to find recipes for paapri chaat on the web. Try searching also with spelling variations like "papri chat" etc. Do you remember if the tamarind based sauce also had yogurt in it?

I agree, Gautam is absolutely right about the use of Shil-Nora (the bengali grinding stone) and the production of a better mustard paste that way, but I do also agree with Mongo that I would accept a "lower standard" of the sorshe when the other option is not to have it at all. Actually, I have found that if you leave the blender going for a long time (10-15 minutes) the mustard paste you get is fairly decent. And yes, I do use the Osterizer brand.Actually not only mustard paste, but all the spices ground using the Shil Nora come out much better too... Hehe -- like I said earlier, I am an anomaly among Bengalis in the sense that I actually like pomfret. Most bengalis would much prefer a sweet-water fish over sea fish any day. That's the reason I carried back 3 bottles on Engine brand mustard oil from my Kolkata trip this time.

Don't know if this is a cardinal sin, but one of my pet peeves is the smell and taste of uncooked spices in Indian food. eg. turmeric, ground coriander. This is the reason I don't go near the food in my company's cafeteria on the days they have the "Indian" menu! Of course there are some spices (like the bengali garam masala) that can be left uncooked sometimes but I am not talking about those. Another one -- the use of way too much spices. This is the classic sign of a bad Indian restaurant. Or when they ask "how spicy do you want the food?" question at an Indian restaurant in the US...

Amber India (North Indian) and Udupi (South Indian) have both gone downhill, undfortunately. Both used to be very good a while back. I hear the Fremont branch of Udupi Palace is still good, although I have no first hand experience. If you like Amber, check out Turmerik (Sunnyvale). If you are a Udupi palace fan, check out Dasaprakash (Santa Clara) or Saravana Bhavan (Mountain View). I have only been to Sue's once, a long time back, probably 7-8 years ago. At that time, the food felt mediocre and severely overpriced. Could not figure out why Sue's was so raved about by the food critics. Perhaps it was my bad luck that day and maybe it's time for me pay them another visit...

During my recent trip to Kolkata, I picked up two Cookbooks specializing in Bengali cooking: "Bangla Ranna: The Bengal Cookbook" - by Minakshie Dasgupta ISBN 81-7476-205-1 and "The Calcutta Cookbook" - by Jaya Chaliha, Minakshie Dasgupta et al. ISBN 01-4046-972-9 Unfortunately, both the books are currently out of stock at amazon.com I found both the books to be fairly good, but then again, I haven't read that many Bengali cookbooks before. The "Calcutta Cookbook" has lots more than recipes -- it has some stories about culture etc. which some people may or may not like. The Bengal Cookbook is more like a cookbook, and it concentrates on recipes alone. The recipes are very well written and would be useful for people who do not have an intuitive feel for Bengali cuisine. This book also has some great pictures. If you want to get introduced to Bengali cooking, the Bengal Cookbook may work for you. PS: Minakshie Dasgupta is the mother of the owners of Kewpie's Restaurant that I mentioned In this thread about Kolkata restaurants.

I think I did try once, but didn't have a good result. Making your own mustard sauce is pretty easy, so I've never bothered to experiment with readymade mustard. Using mustard poweder will probably give you better result than using Dijon mustard -- IIRC, Dijon mustard has more ingredients than mustard... BTW, you can use the same mustard sauce to cook shrimps/prawns as well. In a related note -- while in New Orleans some time back, I had the shrimp remoulade in Arnaud's Restaurant (they call it the "Shrimp Arnaud"), which reminded me of "Sorshe Chingri" (bengali style shrimp in mustard sauce).

The new photos look quite good! BTW, you will be happy to know the same Saravana Bhavan you mention has a branch in the San Francisco Bay Area as well, not too far from where I live: http://www.saravanabhavan.com/inter.htm

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, frozen Illish is available in quite a few Indian/Bangladeshi stores. A whole bunch of other "indian" fishes are also available. If you don't have Illish available, you can substitute American Shad -- Illish and Shad are cousins in the fish family tree... Here is how we cook our sorshe illish. You can use the same recipe to cook sorshe pomfret as well (pomfret, being a "sea-fish" is not very popular in Bengal, although personally I like it). I have the same problem as Mongo -- I cook this by feel, so I dont actually have a recipe. Will wait for mongo's recipe so we can compare notes! Preparing the fish: -------------------- 1) Clean illish by removing all the scales. You really need to remove all the scales. (Tip: hold illish inside a large transparent plastic bag when removing scales -- that way you wont get scales all over your kitchen). Remove all fins. Remove gills. Preserve Illish head for other tasty preparations. 2) Cut illish in approx. 0.75 thick steaks. In some of the Bangladeshi stores over here, if you ask politely, or if you are in the store when they are not very busy, they will cut it for you. If not, you may have to cut it yourself. When I cut the illish myself, I find it easier to cut it while it is still frozen. 3) Remove the crud from the inside. Don't remove the eggs inside and throw them away! The eggs are delicious. You can separate out the eggs and keep them aside. 3) Illish is a big fish, so now you have to cut the steaks into smaller pieces. usually you make one cut that will separate the "back" side (called "gada" in Bengali) from the "belly" side. The back side will be a triangular piece. If this back side piece is too big, cut this further into half, producing two smaller triangles. The other part, which is the belly side, will be a triangular piece as well, but with a big hole in it (the hole is where the fish eggs were... in case the fish had eggs). 4) The back side tastes better, but is filled with lots more bones than the belly side. 5) Thaw out the fish pieces. 6) Rub all this fish pieces with a little bit of ground turmeric powder and salt and leave them to marinate for 10-15 minutes. You can use a few of the pieces to make maach bhaja (recipe follows). Rest you can use to make sorshe illish. Maach bhaja goes well with rice and dal. The deep frying oil is also delicious -- you can simply have some hot rice, mix in some salt and some of this left over deep frying oil and eat it like that. Making maach bhaja (deep fried fish): ------------------------------------------ 1) Heat enough mustard oil in a pan big enough to do deep frying. 2) The oil will start to smoke -- that's how you know its ready. 2) Fry the illish pieces -- depending on their size, it will take about 5-10 minutes. Don't overcook. Making sorshe illish: ---------------------- 1) Soak mustard seeds (I use 50% black and 50% white) in water for 10-15 minutes. Use more mustard seeds than you will need because its easier to grind more seeds. 2) In a blender, grind mustard seeds with enough water. I start with a relatively less water and slowly keep adding water as needed. The final consistency will be a bit more liquidy than Dijon mustard. Make sure that there are no whole seedss left over. In my blender, this process takes about 10 minutes. This will be your gravy. Don't forget to add a bit of salt and mix some more. 3) Heat a shallow pan with a little bit of mustard oil, over medium high heat. When oil starts to smoke, add in the illish fish pieces so they are in a single layer. After a minute or so, turn them over, and then add the mustard paste. Add some slit green chiles for some heat. Once the mustard paste starts boiling, the fish will take another minute or two and you are done. Cooking the Illish eggs -------------------------- 1) remember the eggs you separated out? Clean them little bit under running water. Take care not to break them too much. Dry them. 2) Break them into abou 1-2 inch pieces, and then deep fry in the same oil that the illish maach was fried in. 3) Once done (3-4 minutes max), sprinkle some salt and they are delicious with dal. Alternative recipe: You can mash up the eggs, mix with some salt, ground red chile powder, some chopped onions. Then form little 1-2 inch sized balls, and deep fry these balls. Note: ----- When cooking pomfret, dont use steaks. Instead: 1) Clean pomfret by removing fins etc. 3) Make 2 cuts: * Cut just below the head to separate it from the body. * Cut along the middle of the fish, accross. So you are now left with two sort of triangular looking pieces. I personally don't like the head, so I throw it away. Some people cook with it. 3) Now you can cook the pomfret in a similar fashion to sorshe illish. If you can't get pomfret, you can substitute pompano. pompano is bigger, so you might have to make a few more cuts to get the size right. [ Edit: Corrected my mistyped belly-side/back-side definitions... and some other misc. typos]

Khejur Gur (liquid date palm jaggery -- made from boiling the sap from date palms) is very popular in Bengal during the winter months. It is commongly called "Notun Gur" ( literally, "new jaggery") or "Nolin Gur". Date palm juice ferments very easily -- hence winter is the only time when there is enough time in the early morning to boil this juice and make it into Gur. I had come across an interesting online article a while back: Article on the making of Khejur Gur. In winter, you also get all kinds of sweets which are made from Khejur Gur instead of the normal cane sugar. Shondesh made from this gur is especially valued in winter. You can also have this liquid gur with luchis or porothas. Other times of the year, the Gur you get in Bengal is usually made from Cane sugar I believe. This time, from my trip in Kolkata, I carried back some liquid Khejur Gur -- it seems to taste great poured on pancakes.

I found an online Article about Kewpie's restaurant, and an Interesting article about dining in Kolkata

Economic Times article about Bhojohori Manna And thanks to V. Gautam for explaining what a jhinge is. Are you a food industry professional by chance?

Is it Prawn ? or is it Drumsticks ? My bong is really rusty Neither. Prawn is "Chingri Maach" and Drumsticks are "Shojne Daanta". Jhinge is a vegetable, its long with ridges along the length. Perhaps its called "Ridged Gourd" -- its available in the San Francisco Bay area in the Asian Grocery stores, as well as in Farmers Markets. I will post the english name once I get back to the USA.

Aaheli The Peerless Inn, 12 J L Nehru Road Phone: (33) 2228 0301 This is the restaurant which originated the "trend" of upscale Bengali cuisine eateries. Two of us had lunch here. We each had a vegeterian thali, and shared a Bhetki Paturi (Bhetki fish, in mustard paste sauce, cooked inside a banana leaf wrapper). Each of the vegetarian thalis came with: * Rice+Dal * Bori bhaja ("Bori" is made from sun-dried dal paste with spices. These are then deep-fried) * Aloo-phul kopir dalna (Potatoes+Cauliflower, braised/stewed) * Jhinge-posto (I don't know the english name for jhinge. posto is poppy seeds) * Dhokar dalna (Cubes made from dal paste. Cubes are then deep fried and then stewed) * Pulao * Chatni, made with aamshatto (mangoe leather) and tomatoes * Papad * Mishti -- gulabjamon We also had "ghol" to drink. This is similar to lassi, except it was made with butter milk. Total for two came to about Rs 1100/-. The ambience and service was very good. Unfortunately, the quality of food left something to be desired. The Dhoka was very bad, so was the Bhetki Paturi. The rest of the dishes were mediocre to good.

I managed to check out Kewpies as well... Kewpies 2 Elgin Lane (next to Netaji Bhavan), Kolkata 700020 Phone: (33) 2475 9880 This is a 6 year old place which I hadnt tried before. Started by the daughters of Minakshie Dasgupta (author of "The Bengal Cookbook" and "The Calcutta Cookbook"). This is also a tiny place. Two of us had lunch here. We ordered a "Niramish Thali" (vegetarian combo) and several otther separate dishes. The Niramish Thali came with rice, dal, begun-bhaja (eggplant/brinjal, deep fried), four kochuris, 4 vegetarian dishes, chatni, mishti doi, one rosogolla, papad and pan. So between the two of us, we got to check out: - Rice+dal - Begun bhaja (a quartered brinjal, deep fried) - Four koraishutir kochuri (Kochuri stuffed with mashed green peas; Kochuris are similar to bengali luchis, but slightly thicker) - Mocha ghonto (made from banana blossoms) - Phulkopir dalna (stew made with cauliflower florets) - Puin shaker chorchori ( "Puin shak" is called vietnamese spinach or climbing spinach I think, but I am not sure. The dish had puin shak, kumro (kaddu), potatoes in it). - Koraishutir Dhokar dalna (Dhoka is traditioanally made from dal paste, shaped into cubes. But this was made with mashed green peas, deep fried, and then a stew made with the deep fried cubes) - Tel Koi (spicy preparation of Koi fish) - Ilish paturi (Hilsa fish in mustard sauce, prepared inside a banana leaf wrapper. This particular prepartion used "boneless" Hilsa, which was a first for me) - Chatni made from green tomatoes (Use of green tomatoes is very rare) - Papad - Rosogolla - Mishti Doi (sweetened yogurt) - Pan (Betel leaf with all kinds of fillings) Total was little over Rs 600/-, which included a 10% service charge. I know it is difficult to judge the food at a place after eating there only once, but if I was to rank all the four places only on the basis of quality of food, "Oh Calcutta!" and "Bhojohari Manna" would probably vie for the first place, then "6 Ballygunj Place" and then "Kewpies". If you take ambience and service into account, "Oh Calcutta!" would shoot ahead by a wide margin. Next in line to check out -- Suruchi and Aheli. Not sure if I will have time...

Here is my brief report on the Kolkata eateries I tried recently. Oh! Calcutta This is a new (two year old?) place, situated right next to the INOX movie multiplex inside the "Forum" shopping mall on Elgin road. I am normally not a fan of Indian lunch buffets, but the buffet at this place was delicious. This is what the buffet had: * Rice * Home-style moog dal (aka Moong) * Alu bhaja (crispy fried shredded potatoes) * There was a vegetable torkari, but I forgot what it was * Doi maach ( Rohu fish, cooked in a Yogurt based sauce) * Maangshor jhol ( Goat meat stew) * Payesh (rice pudding) The quality of each one of the dishes was superb. The ambience and service at this restaurant was very upscale. The buffet was cheap at Rs 250/- per person. Bhojohori Manna 9/18 Ekdalia Road, Kolkata 700 019, Phone (33) 2440 1933 This is a brand new tiny place located in Ekdalia Road in Ballygunj. This place is co-owned by the renowned film-maker Goutam Ghosh. This place is supposed to evoke the memories of old time "pice hotels" (cheap eateries) of Kolkata. Three of us stopped here for lunch one day. We had the "thali" along with a non-veg item each: * Rice * Home style moog dal * Aloo bhaja * Mocha Ghonto (dish made from banana blossoms) * Phool-kopi sorshe bata (Cauliflower florets cooked in a mustard sauce) * Dhokar Dalna (Stew of deep fried dal-based fritters) * Chitol maacher peti (stew made with Chitol fish steaks) * Daab Chingri (Prawns in mustard sauce, braised/steamed inside of a whole green coconut) * Maangsho Daakbangla (Fancy name for "Kosha Maangsho", aka spicy goat meat). * Raabri (Sweet dish made from the skin that forms on heated milk) * Mishti Doi The mocha and the Chitol maach were especially good. The total for three of us together was less than Rs. 600/-. Again, an extremely reasonable amount considering the quality of food. 6 Ballygunge Place Phone: 30909743 This is an old Kolkata residence converted into a restaurant. A new place, about 4 months old. This is within walking distance of Bhojohori Manna. Two of us had dinner here, and we shared: * Rice * Moog Dal * Mochar Paturi (Banana blossoms baked inside banana leaf wrapper) * Bhaapa Ilish (Hilsa fish in mustard sauce, steamed) * Kankrar Jhaal (Spicy crabs) * Malpoa (this is a traditional home-made bengali sweet, made from deep fried Chhana based batter soaked in sugar syrup). This was served warm, served along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The ice cream with Malpoa is not traditional, but it made for an excellent combination. * Chhanar Pudding (Chhanna is similar to cottage cheese) Everything except the Kankra was excellent. The Kankra was good, but was a bit on the dry side. Total for two was about Rs 600/-. Ambience and service -- upscale. Still left to check out -- Aheli, Suruchi and Kewpies. Too little time, too many places to try!

Unlike in the past, when it was extyremely difficult to have a good Bengali dining experience in Kolkata, there has recently been a spate of new restaurant openings -- restaurants serving good bengali food. Some of these are: Suruchi, on Elliot Street. This is the old vanguard, run by a women's co-operative. Serves decent meals, not upscale. Aheli, at Peerless Inn -- This restaurant started the "trend" of serving Bengali food in an upscale environment. Good in concept, but I was not impressed by the quality of the food here. But this was 6 years back. I need to go back there and check for myself if the food has improved. Oh! Calcutta, on Elgin Road -- mentioned above. Bhajohori Manna, in Mandeville Gardens -- have heard good things about this place. Six Ballygunj Place -- A dinner only restaurant. Kewpies -- serves bengali food. Of these, I have only tried out Oh! Calcutta recently. I plan to do the others soon, and will report back.

Oh! Calcutta This is a new place on Elgin Road (4th floor of the new swank shopping center, next to the movie multiplex). I had an unbelievably good Bengali Buffet lunch here a couple of weeks back. This restaurant is owned by the same person of "Mainland China" fame.

First of all, big thanks to Chef Vinod and his mom, and Monica. Kudos! Re: making Dosas, I find that when I grind my own rice in my ordinary consumer grade home blender, it does not ferment as well. My guess is that the rice is not powdery enough. So I cheat a little bit and when I start the fermentation process, I add a little bit of rice flour which you can buy from indian grocery stores. This seems to jumpstart the fermentation process. Also, those who are not experts at making dosa and are mere mortals like I am -- I find using a 12-inch non stick omelette pan works best for me instead of using a griddle. That way I can swirl the nonstick pan around to get the batter to be of consistent thickness. I find this easier to do than to use the method Chef Vinod's mom is using -- that method requires skills! BTW, you can use the same "swirling" technic when making french style crepes.

While we are on the topic of Bengali sweets, I would like to add this as well. Like many other regional cuisines, Bengalis sweets can be classified into two broad categories: * Sweets that are very conveniently available in stores, and are rarely made at home by ordinary folks. As a resuly, most average bengali folks don't even know how these sweets are actually made! Rosogullas, shondesh, jilipi (bengali version of jelabis), mishti doi etc. are in this category. * Sweets that are rarely found in stores, and are entirely always made at home. If you have never been to a Bengali home, you've probably never had these. These include things like pooli-pithey (dumpling made from rice flour, floating in milk sweetened with Gur), narkol nadu (made from grated coconut), malpua, chaaler paish (rice pudding), shimair paish (vermicelli in sweetened milk, also popular after Eid and Ramazan), etc. I should add that in recent years, with the changing face of the a traditional bengali "joint family", this is changing. A lot of these traditionally home-made sweets have now started appearing in stores.

I am yet to find decent Rosogollas in the San Francisco Bay Area. I can find fairly decent shondesh at Lovely Sweets in Sunnyvale (they have another branch in Fremont I believe), but the Rosogollas and the other "rosh" sweets are not that good. I have to make do with canned Rosogollas from K.C. Das that I carry back from my trips to Kolkata. Even the canned ones are better than the Rosogollas available here locally . I recently had Mishti Doi at Charulata in Sunnyvale. It was not great, but it was fairly good.