Tarun Niketan Pice Hotel… and exploring Bengali food beyond the hegemony of South Calcutta
My idea of Bengali food initially came from growing up in Shillong in a family that is part Bengali and eating at the homes of Shillong’s Bengali community. Whether it was Durga Puja or a death, an annaprasan or a wedding, I grew familiar with the seasonality of Bengali food, the role of shaags and vegetables like jinga, the hidden secrets of posto and panchphoron, the eye watering clarity of mustard oil, the rituals of the bajaar and the sunday mangsho.
After I left Shillong, my intimacy with Bengali food faded until it was no more than an occasional dish when visiting home between the Khasi staples were more representative of home for me. And so it stayed until the mid 2000s, when the likes of Oh Calcutta started taking Bengali food beyond the Bengali milieu to all parts of the country. Its success let to many restaurants servicing similar dishes, from Bhojahari Manna in Bangalore to Mustard in Mumbai and Goa. I loved all these restaurants, which served many of the most famous dishes that I remembered like luchi mangsho or chingri malay curry.
What I didn’t realise though, was that the food that these restaurants served represented a very South Calcutta take on Bengali food. Very sophisticated, very tasty and a sort of greatest hits menu of rich bhadralok Sunday meals. It left out vast chunks of Bengali cuisine, the food that ordinary people actually ate on a daily basis. With the passage of time I had forgotten how robust and wholesome Bengali food could be, how seasonality impacted every meal, the nose to tail approach to fish and meats, and the root to leaf approach to vegetables.
When I visited Kolkata after close to a decade, I was determined to eat a good Bengali meal and my options were Aheli, Kewpies and 6 Ballygunge Place. However, the two Bengali chefs whose opinion I trust and who have a deep understanding of food and Kolkata are Priyam Chatterjee and Auruni Mookerjee. Both of them told me that the best and most authentic Bengali meals were to be found at the “pice” hotels. These hotels (so named because you could eat a meal for a paisa) have been around for over a century, providing affordable home style Bengali food to ordinary folk.
The food is served on a banana leaf and you’re charged for everything you put on your leaf including the chillies and salt and slices of lemon accompanying your meal. The meal itself consists of rice accompanied by a wide choice of vegetables, fish and meat which vary depending on the time of the year and what’s available in the local market on the day.
I wanted a pice hotel that had the whole trifecta.. fish, meat and vegetables, and not a place that specialised in one of the three. So Auroni sent me to the 108 year old Tarun Niketan hotel, located in an inconspicuous looking alley off Rashbehari Avenue, to eat what was probably the most memorable Bengali meal I’ve every had. The humble interiors and the muggy Kolkata heat don’t encourage gigantic meals but that’s what we had… close to 20 dishes, a vast majority of which can never be found in any well known Bengali restaurant brand.
Each fish dish had a specific cut that was selected. A cross section and the head did the two ilish (dishes), the stomach for the chitol. The fish egg Bora made me wonder (again) why so few Indian communities eat it and why it’s treated like a throwaway part. The gigantic prawns were skewered so they retained their length while cooking and served Bengali style with the heads and all the lovely juices in it. And the chicken curry was so comforting, it may as well have been made by my mother.
What I really loved though were the vegetables and the dishes I had never eaten before, or certainly not in restaurant. I have never had jinga posto outside a home and this one hit the spot. The kolmi saag has this irony, slightly bitter, refreshing flavour that cut through the fat of all the meat and fish. The fish head and dal was this amazing meeting point between a dal and a morighonto. There was a chicken kofta jhol where boneless chicken mince was packed in quenelle shapes and served with a rich, aromatic, thick gravy.
This was an eye opening experience and a realisation that for all my exposure, there is so much food that I still haven’t explored and tried, even in India. I feel a little like Ulysses where the more he saw of the world, the more he realised how much there still was to discover and explore. But at least I can say that when it comes to Bengali food, my horizons have been widened and that I’ve only just begun exploring real Bengali food, rather than the bougie version I knew. For that I am truly grateful.
These are the dishes I remember:
- Bhat
- Machher matha diye daal
- Moong dal
- Maacher dimer bora
- Kumro phool bhaja
- Aloo bhaja
- Jhinge posto
- Ilisher matha diye shobji
- Chitol peti
- Ilish sorshe bhapa
- Chingri Malai Curry
- Desi murgi curry
- Mangsho curry
- Potol sobji
- Kolmi saag
- Chicken kofta jhol
- Fish fry (I think it was Bhetki)
- Jackfruit
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