The humble street sweet shop in Sealdah

In an abandoned entrance of an old building, just ahead of Loreto Day School, Sealdah, a middle-aged man dressed in white dhoti-punjabi and tilak on forehead sets up a stall early morning selling sweets. He sells still stocks last, which is early or mid-afternoon. The sweets are from Krishnanagar, which sounded new to my ears (though the said town is famous for certain sweets) as I am familiar with street shops procuring sweets coming from Chandannagar and Howrah. I have also heard of sweets from Katwa (of Bardhaman district) selling on the city streets. So, in this shop, you shall get to sample the famous 'Sorpuriya' of Krishnanagar as part of a decent range on offer (given the small space).

I have been noticing the shop, named 'Amrit Keli', for many years now as I have been going to Loreto to fetch or drop my daughter(s). The name is another unique aspect of it as street shops are nameless. The sweets look tempting and are testimony to the amazing range of street food Kolkata offers in desserts which has no match in India.

I finally tasted the fare today. Firstly a kheer-covered syrupy sweet (My second favourite category). The thick, kheer-enveloped sweet was so tender, it broke and fell off my finger. The sweetness was moderate, just as I like it. Next was a large lyangcha. It's not often that you get a good quality of this fried sweet on the street. I still went for it as the one I had before was impressive. The lyangcha tasted good! It didn't feel maida (refined flour) much as is the case often.

I got chhanar payesh (Kheer made with tiny chhena balls) packed for my post-lunch dessert in office. It was thickly creamy and good in taste! My personal preference would be a bit less sweet though.

The prices are much reasonable given the quality. My bill was Rs 47.

This calls for more visits to check out the other goodies.


#Sweets #BengaliSweets #KolkataSweets #Sorpuriya #StreetFood


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The Christmas treats from The Lalit Great Eastern Kolkata

The goodiebox from the cake shop of The Lalit Great Eastern Kolkata that arrived in my office was red, so was the man – dressed in a red t-shirt and cap. It felt for a moment that Santa had taken a disguise and appeared ahead of schedule.

The name ‘Great Eastern Hotel cake shop’ takes me back to my childhood. My father’s office was across the road, opposite the hotel’s erstwhile entrance on Old Court House Street. The aroma wafting out of the 19^th century bakery (founded by English baker David Wilson) of The Great Eastern Hotel (The previous name) was irresistible and he was among many to queue up at the cake shop for their tempting Christmas cakes. Those wonderful cakes make one of the sweetest memories from that age of mine.

Coming back to the goodiebox. It had a card with handwritten Christmas wish from the General Manager of the hotel. I found a one pound Christmas fruit cake, a pack of Christmas cookies, a vanilla muffin, an orange muffin and a loaf of Masala Bread inside.

 Inside of the Christmas goodiebox

The vanilla muffin tasted good. It had a mild vanilla flavour, had nuts and was not intensely sweet which is how I like my cakes.

The Masala Bread topped with cumin seeds had a mild spicy flavour which was nice. To enjoy a slice of it better, toast it lightly and give it a pat of butter.

 The Masala Bread

The Christmas cake was also delicately sweet and good in taste. The taste is distinctly different from other cakes as they use clarified butter instead of butter. It is not loaded with dry fruits and candied orange peel, so you can have it any time of the year as a tea cake.

 The Christmas cake

 

I liked the Christmas cookies a lot. I crave for good cookies and the hard, crunchy, sticky, coconutty cookies were delicious. They had dried plums for the added goodness and again, were not intensely sweet. The children should love it.

 The Christmas cookies

If you wish to buy your Christmas cake from the hotel's cake shop, it's on Waterloo Street. They've opened well-decorated extended counters outside to cater to the long queue, so once you reach near the hotel at the end of the street, you shall not need further direction. The counters are opening around 9 o' clock. They also have an outlet of the cake shop in New Market where you may visit if you want to avoid a long queue. But try not to go there late afternoon as you may end up being too early for the next day.

My heartiest thanks to The Lalit Great Eastern Kolkata for the gesture! Wish it a great Christmas season!

Wish you a Merry Christmas too! Soak in the chilly weather with good food.

#Christmas #Christmascake #TheLalitGreatEastern #TheBakery #TheLalitKolkata #TheLalitexperience #Heritage #KolkataHeritage

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The First Week of Italian Cuisine at Italian Consulate

It was a pleasant surprise to read the short email from the secretariat - a pre-invite to block the date of 22^nd November and the promise that a further invite would be sent for a food and wine-tasting event. The occasion was ‘The First Week of Italian Cuisine in the World’ which was being celebrated globally for the first time over 21^st to 27^th November. The host was none other than the consul-general in Kolkata and the venue was the consulate. It was a kind of invite that a blogger only aspires for.  

The objective of ‘The First Week of Italian Cuisine in the World’ was to promote Intalian cuisine. The celebration was taking place in the countries where Italy had consular presence. It was observed by the consul-general that Italian food was popular in Kolkata but the city didn’t have Italian chefs. Hence they were brought in for the event to serve the authentic Italian flavour.

The event was held in collaboration with the five participating hotels (all five-star) and an Italian chef from each was at the helm of operations. There were Mauro Ferrari from Hyatt Regency, Francesco Francavilla from Oberoi Grand, Vittorio Greco from ITC Sonar, Alessio Lorenzo from Taj Bengal and Michelangelo Sparapano from The Park.

As I walked into the consulate, I saw the consul-general standing near the entrance to greet the guests. The party was taking place in the lawn. The five hotels put up their stalls here. I met a few blogger friends and some of us decided to do a round of the stalls to zero in on the dish to start with.

I stopped at Hyatt Regency first where chef Mauro Ferrari was searing his Marinated Open Chicken Alla Diavola on a hot plate. I decided to start with it after blogger friend Poorna Banerjee recommended it having tasted before. The chef served me himself. The tender, flat, roasted chicken breast pieces with caramelized sides energized the taste buds and prepared them for the gastronomic journey ahead. The chef poured two-three teaspoons of the salsa alla senape sauce (a mustard sauce) on the chicken and the bites smeared with it tasted even better. It was worth a repeat.

Chef Mauro Ferrari in action

Went to the ITC Sonar stall and saw chef Vittorio Greco in a black apron cooking a fish dish in a pan. The thick fillet in a light-coloured, thin sauce looked inviting as I am game for a lightly cooked fish preparation. It was named Beckti Capers Celery and Taggiasche Olives and seemed to be a stew with vegetables (The texture resembling the ‘Machher jhol’ prepared with seasonal vegetables in Bengali households). I took one piece on my plate and the fishy Bengali in me loved the subtle flavour of this minimally cooked creation.  I took a repeat of the dish later.

Beckti Capers Celery and Taggiasche Olives

Tried the cold cuts from the same stall. It was for the first time I tried uncooked, seasoned meat and it tasted good but salty. It should have been taken with bread served alongside.

 Vittorio Greco with resident Master Chef Sunayan Pramanik at ITC Sonar stall

As expected, the party was attended by distinguished people from various walks from the city. I spotted writer Amitav Ghosh and leading actress Koel Mullick with her producer husband Nishpal Singh. Koel obliged my blogger friends with a selfie.

We bloggers were constantly exchanging notes on what the picks were from the wide array of foods. Heard good things about the crepe at the Hyatt stall and the extremely thin crust pizza at The Park stall. Tried the crepe made with ricotta (Italian cheese), exotic vegetables like baby spinach, radicchio and pakchoi and parmesan fondue. The vegetables soaked in cheesy goodness between the soft, browned crepe sheets made love with the palate!

Crepes with ricotta, baby spinach, radicchio and pakchoi, parmesan fondue

Tried the pizza. I’ve heard that the pizza that we know here as an Italian dish is far from the kind Italians have. But the one that I saw there being made was as thin as tandoori roti! I am not a pizza person and it was a vegetarian pizza, so, it didn’t impress much but it did taste better than the stuff available here.

Same with the pasta I tried from the Taj Bengal stall and ITC Sonar stall. The one from the Taj Bengal was vegetarian and the one from ITC Sonar was my favourite penne with pork and veggies. Both were made with red sauce and tomato (which I don’t like in pasta). My kind of pasta is made with white sauce.

The penne pasta

The farfalle pasta

We wrapped up with desserts from the Oberoi Grand stall. I don’t have great weakness for chocolate cake/pastry (I’m a dry cake person), so I took the Barozzi Cake with some apprehension along with tiramisu which is my favourite Italian dessert. But the tasting proved different. The interplay of Ghana chocolate (a dark chocolate) and wine made for a pleasant surprise and can be encapsulated in one word – sublime! I like dark chocolate and it was at its best. The tiramisu was good and appreciated by my blogger friends but I would want a little more coffee in it.

Barozzi Cake (below), tiramisu (top left) and cannoli (top right)

The evening was a refined and rare culinary experience to cherish in a long time to come! My heartfelt thanks to the Italian consul-general Mr Damiano Francovigh for the invitation. It opened a window of gourmet Italian food to me and I am definitely admiring Italian cuisine much more after that evening.

#ItalianCuisine #ItalianChef #GourmetFood #ItalianConsulate #ItalianConsulateKolkata #Foodtasting

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Street food: Chana tikia and mango lassi

This chatwallah near the AC Market end of Lord Sinha Road makes a mean chana tikia, as I found out on an official visit to this area. It had the right tang of tamarind sauce and spiciness with crunchily tawa-fried double aloo tikia.

It made my day! At Rs 40 a plate, though not cheap (not anyway expected in this part of the city), it’s worth every rupee. Will visit again as I dig good chana tikia.

Now comes the perfect follow-up! It didn't happen on the same day, though. But that's pretty much possible on a foodwalk as the two places are not far apart. Just two metro stations.

The top of the beer mug is covered with dry fruits, cherry and khoa. Thick mango lassi inside (lassi mixed with mango juice, not syrup). 

Sheer bliss! Especially as a dessert after a hearty meal. 

Available at Esplanade East. From KC Dass to Dacres Lane, on the right (a few steps from Bhojohori Manna). There are a few lassi & juice shops selling it for many years, but the corner shop seems to be the most popular. As you draw close, the stuff of the shops will call you aloud to try their mango lassi. The only other lassi available is plain lassi, which is the same thing without the mango bit.

The corner shop

#Chaat #Lassi #StreetFood

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Dragon Boat Festival celebration at Yauatcha

The Dragon Boat Festival is a unique celebration of China that dates back 2,000 years. It is celebrated by eating sticky rice, drinking rice wine, racing dragon boats and indulging in festivities with friends and family.

Yauatcha Kolkata, the fine-dining dim sum teahouse in Quest, is celebrating The Dragon Boat Festival throughout June with a special menu. It is as part of the celebration happening in all the restaurants of the chain in India.

The menu features a limited edition menu created by head chef Wang Yixuan featuring zongzi- pyramid-shaped sticky rice dumplings, a dessert and an exclusive cocktail.

The meticulously created menu includes authentic but contemporary delicacies devoured during this festival. Yauatcha’s newly introduced zongzi dishes include various fillings of edamame and vegetarian duck, pork belly and shiitake mushroom, lamb and pine nuts and chicken among others.

Chicken Zongzi 

Prawn Chicken Zongzi 

To special dessert and the cocktail created with wine complete the meal experience. The Wine-soaked Water Chestnut with Mango Cake is served with a Sauvignon sorbet, while the Citrus Spritz cocktail, made with vodka, dry vermouth, lime and wine will also be available to order à la carte for a limited period of time.

Wine-soaked Water Chestnut with Mango Cake served with a Sauvignon sorbet

The Citrus Spritz cocktail

The Dragon Boat Festival menu is available to order from an a la carte menu from 1st June until 30th June 2016 for all day dining.

Pictures provided by Yauatcha

#DragonBoatFestival #Yauatcha

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The curtain raiser of Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival 2016, 14th-17th January

January is the season of book fair and literary meets in Kolkata. And AKLF is the first literary meet to roll. Organized by Apeejay Surendra Group and Oxford Bookstore, it had a curtain raiser with a heritage walk on College Street, the city’s book and academic hub, on the last Sunday morning (10^th January). The walk was organized by Streets of Calcutta. Rangan Dutta, a well-known travel blogger and writer, led the walk. I joined it at College Square and continued till the end at Swami Vivekananda’s residence. About seventy heads met and took the walk.

The famous swimming club at College Square, named College Square Swimming Club, was founded in 1917 by a group of seventeen people headed by Pramotho Nath Ghosh with the objective of imparting scientific training of swimming and development and promotion art of life-saving in water for the society.

College Square

Calcutta University was the first institution in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary and secular Western-style university, was established in 1857.

Calcutta University

We were walking along College Street which is the largest book market in the country and also the largest second-hand book market in the world.

The building at the crossing of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Street where the legendary Indian Coffee House, the heritage coffee shop, is located

The college which was founded as Hindoo College in 1817 was rechristened Presidency College in 1855 and turned into Presidency University by the state government in 2010.

Rangan Datta (in blue) with the participants in Presidency University

There is this plaque near the main gate in the memory of its gate-keeper Ram Eqbal Singh (a harmonious name!) who died chivalrously defending his college in the riots of 1926.

There is this statue, hardly noticed, at the College Street-MG Road junction (diagonally opposite erstwhile College Street market). It is of Rai Kristodas Pal Bahadur who was a renowned journalist (1838-1884) and a legislator. He was awarded the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (CIE). It was an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1878.

The statue of Rai Kristodas Pal Bahadur

The old College Street market was demolished to make India’s first book mall by the state government. The showpiece mall named Barnaparichay (The name of the first book in Bengali), perfectly fitting this book-loving city, was conceived in 2007 to be built under PPP. Due to some reasons, the construction is still not complete and only a part of it is operational now. Its main entrance has been kept intact due to the heritage status.

College Street market

The famous  Laha Bari- a house aged more than 200 years, belongs to the Laha family who bought it from another Bengali family. Well known for its Durga Puja and numerous Bengali and Hindi film shoots.

Laha Bari

Thanthania Kalibari, one of the famous temples of goddess Kali, was founded by Shankar Ghosh in 1803, a mentioned in the temple building itself. However, according to another inscription in the temple, its foundation was laid in 1703. The deity is called Siddheshwari and it is made of clay.

Thanthania Kalibari

We stopped by this old sign of a tram stop which has surprisingly withstood eras. An old man in his late seventies sitting in a shop near it was telling us his experience of it seeing our enthusiasm. He said it was already built while he was a small kid. Rangan and Shaikh Sohail, a heritage enthusiast in the group tried to second-guess its age and agreed that it must be more than a hundred years.

 An old tram stop sign from the British era

The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj was formed in a public meeting of Brahmos held in the Town Hall of Calcutta on 15^th May 1878. ‘Brahmo Samaj’ means a community of men who worship only Brahma or the Supreme Spirit of the universe.

 Sadharon Brahmo Samaj

The culmination of the walk turned out to be the biggest highlight. We visited the home of Swami Vivekananda which has been turned into a museum by Ramakrishna Mission. The entry ticket costs Rs 10 and you need to leave your shoes in the racks outside. This tranquil place on the busy Bidhan Sarani was Swami Vivekananda's home throughout his childhood and early youth. The large house was built by his great-grandfather Rammohan Dutta. All the furniture and accessories used by him and his family are tastefully preserved and displayed. The anecdotes of his childhood are illustrated through life-size statues.

The condition of the house deteriorated terribly over time. Finally, in 1999, it was acquired along with an adjacent plot by Ramakrishna Mission. It was painstakingly restored through great preparation and research and monstrous efforts with the help of Archeological Society of India over 1999-2004 and made into a museum and cultural centre. It was thrown open for public visit in 2004. There is a short audio-visual played inside which depicts the truly historic restoration. A large auditorium is being built at the backyard now.

The residence of Swami Vivekananda

The adjacent building, now an education centre run by the mission

There was an unofficial sweet ending at Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Nandy, the legendary sweet shop at Hedua that specialises in sandesh, not far from the said museum. Indrajit Lahiri and Soumya Shankar Ghosal of Streets of Calcutta treated us with a sandesh each. The naram paak (soft made) nolen gur sandesh handpicked by Indrajit, a food blogger by passion, was sublime to put it in short.

To know more about AKLF, visit its website (Link given in the first line), its Facebook page and Twitter handle.

#AKLF #AKLF2016 #HeritageWalk #CollegeStreet #KolkataHeritage #Kolkata

  

  

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