Taste Bengali Cuisine

Bengali food is not very spicy but yes sweet as much as Bengali girls. Bengalis has this habit of adding sugar to every recipes. Some of Bengali exotic cuisines are made of jaggary (palm sugar), daab (young coconut), malaikari (coconut milk) and posto (poppy seed). Bengalis are inevitably non vegetarian or better say 'fisheterian'. They just love different kinds of fish. There are chingri (river prawns) and various fishes such as bhetki, illish, pabda more characteristic than meat. An excellent dish called bhetki paturi is made up of fish steamed in banana leaf.

Vegetarian lovers please don’t get disappointed. Bengal is food lovers paradise where every type of food is equally welcomed and appreciated. Although vegetarian cuisines are much different in taste than their northern counterpart. Most of the Bengali food are prepared by mustard oil, there are excellent vegetarian choices. Two exotic vegetarian recipes are mochar ghonto (mashed banana-flower, potato and coconut) and doi begun (brinjal mini-eggplants in creamy sauce). Most of traditional Bengali lunch starts with sukto (a fantastic item made from bitter gourd). A typical Bengali lunch comprise of rice, dal(mostly moong), something fried, one seasonal vegetable dish, another vegetarian dish(curry type), fish, chutney, and ubiquitous sweet(s).

Unlike north Indians, Bengalis are not prone to use butter and ghee in their cuisines, they use it little bit for some specific items. Most of the Bengalis Sunday breakfast starts with luchi (puri) and aloo bhaja (fried potato) and round off with sandesh and rossogolla (famous Bengali sweets). A traditional summer drink is aampora sharbat made from cooked green mangoes with added lime zing.

And how can one forget about Bengali desserts? Bengal is a home to countless types of sweets. Bengali sweets are legendary. Most characteristic is misti doi ( curd sweetened with jaggary), best when the crust dries to a fudge texture leaving the remainder lusciously moist.

Culinary Delight at Mumbai’s Colaba Causeway

The old Colaba Causeway remains the same as it was 50 years back. The same ramshackle buildings, the same old buses ploughing through sultry conditions, the same deserted stores where the only buzz is that of flies and not to forget the same old restaurants serving cuisines that people in Mumbai have grown up on. Each food joint has its own singularity, though filthy but totally comforting.

Colaba Causaway is located in the southern part of Mumbai, earlier known as Old Woman’s Island because the place was constructed in 1838 and the two islands were joined to Mumbai. The place is embellished with many heritage structures like National Gallery of Modern Arts (NGMA), Regal Cinema, Khusrow Bagh, Gateway of India and Sasson Dock. The Colaba Causeway is also known as Cultural Square of Mumbai and quite famous among tourists from different parts of the world.

Apart from heritage flavour, Colaba Causeway is much known to locals for various culinary magic. Camy Wafers opposite to Kailash Parbat restaurant is a spicy and sweet delights. Whoever tastes the onion khakhras or kalakand will always remember the forever. The methi khakhras at Camy are the best, but need to check the timing as methi produces much heat in the body. The world of snacks brings people to Theobroma – a relatively recent Causeway bakery, so tiny that there is no space for your stomach to expand. Immensely popular from Byculla to Chinchpokli. Or at least from Breach Candy to Cuffe Parade. They do chocolate in very form, from brownies to pastries to brittle. Innovative ideas and top quality ingredients have made this place quite the winner.

Unfamiliarity is what the Causeway rules. The place is visible with everyone from different nationalists, touts, and tourists, beggars and hookers, branded stores and emporiums with mannequins frozen in the early 1950s. Add to the buttom-pinchers and drug dealers as you negotiate the broken footpaths and almost plunge into an open sewer.

Causeway was built by the British, a road to the southernmost islets of the archipelago from the Fort. Sepia-tinted photos show a narrow causeway, stretching out towards Colaba, with water on both sides. Soon these seas had been reclaimed, leaving this connecting road high and dry. The only sign that waves once lapped against both its shores remains in the name. The word Colaba Causeway would roughly signify the stretch between Regal Theatre and Sassoon Docks. Lined on both sides with stores and restaurants, this was, in its heyday, Bombay’s shopping paradise. Gradually, the world of retail shifted to Breach Candy, and then further, to Bandra, Juhu and the malls of Bombay’s suburbia. Causeway stores stayed frozen in time, the dust of years barely stirred by their old fans. Budget tourists descended in droves, but did little more for Causeway than litter its footpaths with hawkers peddling the ethnic Indian experience, from inlaid boxes to kurtas and kolhapuri chappals. Causeway was sinking, back into the sea from which it rose.

Synopsis - Indian Food, Indian Exotic Cuisines, India Best Food Experience

Culinary Discovery in Thailand

In Thailand, it is the roadside that is almost always, uniformly home to the best food to be had. During the many trips I have made to the country, this truth has only been reinforced. Nowhere is this truer than in Bangkok, easily one of the culinary capitals of the world in general, and of street food in particular. Finding good, cheap street food in Bangkok is not a hard task, all one needs to do is follow one’s nose.

The Thais take their food seriously, and it being a communal affair, roadside eateries heave with people at meal times – adding to the chaos of the already congested Bangkok roads. Needless to say the smell of food permeates the streets too. A walk down a main thoroughfare and the olfactory senses are assaulted with myriad scents and smells – the sweet, charcoal-laden smell of grilled sausages, the pungency of the chillies that accompany any meal, the tanginess that accompanies the soups, the fragrance of lemon grass and basil foremost amongst the many herbs used to flavour the dishes…

From breakfast to dinner to snacks in between, there are no meals that can’t be had on the road. Even the variety of food available on the street is astounding. There are certain foods that are only to be eaten on the roads. The ubiquitous Pad Thai is one. Found literally everywhere, this dish is a thin flat stir fried rice noodles flavoured with eggs, chicken or shrimp, bean sprouts, fish sauce, tamarind juice, lots of red chilli pepper and garnished with even more chilli pepper and an overload of peanuts – a good Pad Thai is an explosion of flavours and textures.

Bangkok, through history, has always attracted migrants from across Asia, and this reflected in the street food as well. The insanely crowded, bustling China Town is home to everything from pork noodles to dumplings to glutinous rice wrapped in banana leaves, not to mention the array of seafood available. No talk of Bangkok street food can be complete without a mention sweets – coconut ice cream, Cendol ( a desert consisting of shaved ice, coconut milk, noodles and palm sugar with optional add ons of red beans, glutinous rice or grass jelly), mango with sticky rice, sandwiches with sweet kaya (coconut jam) or red bean fillings. Though most people don’t much delight South East Asian desserts and given the heat of the Thai capital, it’s the fruit salads that tempt more people. Raw mangoes and fresh juicy pineapples (often accompanied with a sugar and chilli topping, for an extra punch), rambutans, mangosteens, lychees flood the roads. Like everything else had on the street in Bangkok, they are bursting with flavours – fresh and completely satisfying.

Kochi Best Restaurants

• Malabar Junction – To begin with, check out Malabar Junction…Chic and quaint, the restaurants at Malabar House Residency is a heritage building that once housed the tea traders and bankers of old Cochin. It is a clever blend of the old and the new, walls washed in contemporary colours and balanced out with a large collection of special antiques. The restaurant carries the same theme, is simple and extends from a veranda of sorts to a garden, a perfect setting for an evening of food and a glass of wine. Owned by a German-Spanish couple, the fusion food, a deliberate blend of Mediterranean and Kerala, is meant to cater to many tourists who visit the town.

Address – Malabar Junction, 1/268, Parade Road
Fort Kochi, Kerala

• Fort House – Located close the water, Fort House is best known for its seafood and homely cuisines. Part of a home run hotel, the interiors of the restaurant offer a rustic feel drawn perhaps from the thatched roof and old furniture. Interestingly, a part of it carries forward to a jetty that juts out into the sea. As expected, the view from this perch is spectacular and as you dine al fresco fishing boats and canoes ply across the waters. The cuisine is largely Keralite with flavours of Cochin’s foreign influences as well as from recipes of the Latin Catholics, fisher folk who live along the coast of Kerala.

Address – Hotel Fort House, 2/6A, Calvathy Road
Fort Kochi, Kerala

• Upstairs – Ideal for pizzas, Lasagna, fritto-misto or an array of salads, it is run by an Indian-Italian couple. The interiors are simple and essentially in white and blue. The restaurant is the upstairs of an old structure that has been converted into a one room diner – thus the name – with ample light and air flowing through. The menu drawn up by the owners, who personally cook everything, focuses on authentic Italian. There is freshly baked bread, celery-walnut salad, blue cheese pizza besides a choice of desserts like affogato or apple cake to be washed down with plenty of coffee.

Address – Upstairs, The Italian Restaurant
Next to Santa Cruz Basilica,
K B Jacob Road, Fort Kochi, Kerala

• Tea Pot – A quaint stop for that cuppa…this is a tea-room where one can savour the antiquity and charm of Fort Cochin’s Old Portuguese homes. Converted recently into a café, much of the structure’s original style and lines of architecture have been retained. The interiors are warm; tea crates act as tables, a collection of kettles and teapots adorn the place and tea stains decorate the walls. There is enough on the menu for a meal as well: prawn curry and rice or appam and stew. And if that still keeps you hungry, just ring the little brass bell on your table. The stewards would be glad to help.

Address – Tea Pot, Peter Celli Street, Fort Kochi, Kerala

• Kashi Art Café – Started for the sole purpose of art, it later saw the addition of a café…Kashi is where one can relax, almost endlessly. The ambience entices a visitor to stay, best with book for company. The décor is warm with red-oxide flooring and handmade furniture from local coconut wood. Aspects such as an old sewing machine placed as a table and an ancient tea-maker adds to the décor. There is plenty of contemporary art on the walls, mostly for sale.

Address – Kashi Art Café, Burgher Street. Fort Kochi, Kerala.