charulata

[mongo_jones]

the menu looks great!

is this a first?

http://www.charulata.com/index.html

[mongo_jones]

bong, other bay area folks: if you haven't already been there, how about making a trip and reporting on your findings. if you have been there already what is it like?

[anil]

After lookink at their dinner menu, I was about to hit a reply on this thread --- [ bitching...]; then I went back to look at the other stuff - the snacks -- It was about ghugni ...... lo and behold it was there in the snack list. I loved ghugni -- yum yum

BTW Lou Chingri ??? Never heard of this ! [ I hate lou anyway ] With sooo many Silhet/Chittagong cab drivers in NYC you'd hope one bangal place would open up! Nah ! Maybe there is a takeout in the bowels of Queens that I don't know about !!! Oh Well !!!

mongo_jones: Good work ferreting this new nugget.

Edited October 31, 2003 by anil (log)

[mongo_jones]

anil. lau chingri is awesome when done right. you should try it in a home when next in cal.

i'm definitely trying this place on my next trip to the bay area (in the indefinite future). there are so few bengali restaurants (even in bengal) that there really is very little to compare it to--many of the standard indian restaurant complaints ("nothing like home food" etc.) don't apply--since there really is almost no tradition in india of bengali restaurant food. most non-bengali indians outside bengal have never eaten bengali food.

there certainly are a lot of bengali classics on the menu--hope they're done well, and cooked using good shorshe tel.

[homechef]

yes, yes it is good. good catfish (with bones), great mustard potatoes, breadfruit. the special lunch was completely bengali (no chicken tikka masala or lasooni gobi sneaking in). i would recommend it just on the basis of the wide variety of vegetarian options. or alternatively, the goat is pretty good, and in the evenings they claim to actually serve hilsa (heard but not seen - i've only eaten one lunch there so far)

when i was in high school i'd flirt with my bengali friends just so i could get their mothers to cook for me. this took me back to the old days... ok, it's not worthy of quite that much deviousness.... but it's unique, they're actually trying to promote a unique regional cuisine, and it even is good, so get out there bay area people! lest we be relegated to spending our lives in "multi-cuisine" misery...

-anand

[mongo_jones]

homechef,

the bangladeshi wholesalers in los angeles import whole frozen hilsa/ilish. i'm sure the same is true in the bay area, nyc and chicago as well. i bought and cooked a fair amount of it in my 10 years in l.a. not sure if it is padma ilish but the taste survived the freezing and flying pretty well. somehow i had a 80% strike rate of getting a ilish full of eggs. as any bengali (bangal or ghoti) will tell you, shorshe ilish with a side of fried ilish eggs is like foie gras with a side of caviar.

glad to hear a good report of charulata. now we need a bengali opinion.

mongo

[bong]

To my knowledge, Charulata is the one and only Bengali restaurant here in the Bay Area, possibly one and only one in California as well.

When I learnt Charulata would be opening, I was hugely excited, being a Bengali myself and all.

However, the food left a lot to be desired. That's one of the reasons I have not commented on this restaurant. Believe me, being a bengali myself, I really do want this restaurant to succeed, so I am willing to give them a benefit of the doubt and a second chance.

On our first visit (a couple of months back), we were there for lunch. Service was really, really bad (the owner came by at the very end, when we were paying the bill and apologized, but it was too late then). Usually, I really don't care for service in a restaurant unless it is outstanding or it's horrible -- and at this place on that day, it was horrible. It was painfully slow, the waiter kept bringing us the wrong things, etc. etc.

Unfortunately, the food that I had over there also left a lot to be desired. We had the "Enchorer Dalna" (Stew of green jackfruit), Dal (I think it was "mooger dal" aka moong dal), "Sorshe Illish" (Hilsa fish cooked in a mustard paste gravy). I wanted to try the goat meat, but they were out of goat meat on that day.

Each and every one the items were unmemorable. We had some sweets at the end, but they also were nothing to write home about.

Another time, I bought some snacks ("Kolkata style Chicken rolls") to go -- those were really bad as well. Bland and utterly tasteless. A far cry from "Kolkata style".

Reading about the experiences from homechef makes me a bit optimistic -- perhaps I caught them on an off-day. Like I said, I am still willing to give them a benefit of doubt.

Homechef, when did you eat there last?

[bong]

BTW Lou Chingri ??? Never heard of this ! [ I hate lou anyway    ]

Yeah, I hate lau too. Except for this particular dish. It's heavenly when it's done right.

For those who don't know what a "Lau" is, it's a "Bottle gourd". Its called "Lauki" in Hindi. And chingri is off course shrimp or prawn.

[mongo_jones]

what is wrong with you people with your hatred of lau? lau is heavenly--my mouth is watering in anticipation of eating my mother's shredded lau with coconut. less than 2 more months!

[susruta]

Nan, onion nan, tandoori roti -- -at a Bengali restaurant? It doesn't inspire confidence. Actually, the best thing about Bengali food are the wonderfu vegetarian dishes -- poshto, shukto, dal. , etc.

[mongo_jones]

the breads did give me pause too. but just steamed rice might be a little minimalist. i hope the paratha on the menu is the great, thick, layered bangal porotha. i'm willing to forgive them the naan and roti's just because they kept the vindaloo (chicken/lamb/beef--mild/medium/spicy) and its ilk off the menu. and they do seem to have a lot of bengali specialties, including alu/jhinge posto. of course, we've received two opposing reviews on the subject of whether they actually do them right.

[bong]

So with all this talk about Charulata, I couldn't resist myself and went back for a second time, this time for dinner.

And I am happy to report that this time, my experiences were better than the last time.

We had the following:

* Prawn Cutlet (made with Prawn, spiced mashed potatos, soaked in egg white, dredged in bread crumbs and then fried).

* Vegetable chops -- very similar to the cutlet, except it has cooked veggies (peas, beets, potatoes etc) inside. And the shape is different.

* Loochi and "aloor dom". ( Loochi is the Bengali style poori. Not made with atta but with flour instead.

Aloor dom is spiced potatos)

* Kasha Mangsho (Goat meat, braised in onions, garlic, ginger, yogurt).

* Rice

* Mishti Doi (Sweetened Yogurt)

* Malai Chomchom (hard to describe in english).

Of these, the Prawn cutlet was good. The vegetable chops were better. However they were served without any "Kashundi" (bengali style mustard paste, to be had as a condiment) on the side. For me, good "kashundi" is a must to go with these.

The Aloor Dom was pretty bad. The Loochis were good, but not great. It's difficult to make great loochis in a restaurant environment, so that's understandable.

The Kasha Mangsho was very good, although, again, not great.

The Mishti Doi was better than any mishti doi I have had in the USA.

The Malai Chomchom was not good. It was too dry and too sweet.

Also this time, unlike the last time, the service was adequate.

So there were a few hits and misses, but I did come back with some hope. I will probably go back, simply because it's geographically close to were I live. If it was something I had to drive long distances for, I'd probably skip it.

[homechef]

i last went to charulata about 3 weeks ago. i've been there for lunch and dinner, and actually prefer the weekend lunch, mostly because of the lucchis and the wide variety of veggie fare.

my main point is - at least charulata is trying to do something regional and unique. and i'd hope people would take that into account when choosing between it and some tikka masala joint...

personally, i took my coworkers there for lunch (all non-indian) and they had a really good time. several told me that it was the best indian food they'd ever eaten. that really ought to give hope to the restauranteurs who want to try something unique in the indian space...

[bong]

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.

[mongo_jones]

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.

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"? you'd think silicon valley of all places would support a regional indian cuisine. certainly south indian restaurants do well in areas with large indian populations. i'd theorize that that might be because a) there are more south indians in the u.s and b) even north indians are used to eating out at south indian restaurants in india whereas something like bengali cuisine is a relative unknown even in india (outside bengal, that is).

thoughts?

[bong]

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.

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).

[mongo_jones]

so maybe its bengali food wasn't good enough to impress bengalis who can eat it at home, and maybe bengali food in general wasn't enticing enough for other indians, and maybe a non-indian audience wants to see chicken tikka masala on the menu when they go out for indian. and maybe they just sucked. but we've had at least one opinion here to the contrary vis a vis the quality of their food.