Return of the King: #blahvsfood goes to Yokocho, Kolkata

Auroni Mookerjee is the greatest Bengali chef in the world. The man who changed how the world saw and understood Bengali food… its restaurants, its cuisine, its produce, its place in the world.

So of course, when he decided to go back to Kolkata and open his own restaurant (in partnership with Abhimanyu Maheshwari), he didn’t do Bengali food! Instead, he opened an Eastern (as in East Asian, not East Indian) street food restaurant inspired by Japanese izakayas and urban khao gallis! 

Yokocho is a triumph. It is a completely original take on eastern food, one that celebrates Tokyo alleyways and Singapore hawker centres while not being imitative in any way. This isn’t an “Asian” restaurant the way we know it. It is eastern food through Auroni’s lens, with big swathes of his love of Kolkata thrown in, along with a lifetime of memories.

Banchan from the bajaar

Calcutta temaki tacos

Soup dumplings 

Childhood memories of Gung Palace in Delhi see you start with banchan, but this is a banchan made with the everyday produce of a Kolkata bajaar, the daily food of a Bengali home. The hand rolled sushi tacos transport you to a prawn cocktail in 90’s Park Street, all creamy indulgence and sweet flesh. The soup dumplings are as much jhol momo as Xiao long bao, with a warm broth that reminds you of winter evenings. 

Char Sui pork 

Shiozake salmon 

Eel and eggs 

But because Auroni’s memories traverse the world and not just Bengal, there are also dishes that are more straight up that showcase some serious mastery of textbook Asian techniques and flavours. Whether it’s the pork belly char sui (with some sort of addictive sesame soy sauce), the shiozake salmon, or the (off menu) hamachi collar, you won’t find better Asian cooking anytime soon. And speaking of off menu dishes, Auroni and team produced a dish of eel and eggs that was, by some distance, the best eel I’ve ever had in India. 

Crudo, capers and tamari 

Chintan style ramen 

Hong Kong egg tarts 

This skill and proficiency shows itself in dish after dish. The ramen has a broth thats as good as a pure ramen restaurant, as well as noodle work that is shockingly good without the specialised equipment of a ramen shop. The Swan Oyster inspired crudo shows knife work that typically takes years to perfect. And the pastry work in the Hong Kong egg tarts is light, airy and flaky, and arguably the best in the country.

Mala fried chicken

Strangely, the two dishes that really made the meal for me were both chicken dishes. The Mala Fried Chicken with Hot Honey, Pickles & Kewpie should be showcased in a classroom because this is as close to perfection as you get when it comes to fried chicken cooking. The batter, the temperature of the oil, the crunch and marinate on the batter, the lack of oiliness in the batter, the juiciness of the meat itself and the heat it retained, the way the hot honey and kewpie mayo manage to complement each other thanks to the brine and acidity in the pickle. If you could list every criteria that goes into a great fried chicken, this one hits a ten on ten on them all.

Hainanese chicken rice, hamachi collar 

And then there was my favourite dish of all… the Hainanese chicken rice. What separates a good Hainanese chicken rice from a great one is the rice more than the chicken. And while the chicken and fixings were flawless, the rice (Kanakchur, a short grained rice from Bengal) was unforgettable. The rice was toasted in chicken fat and aromatics, then boiled in chicken stock and pandan… and the end result was a rice that was comforting and fragrant and compelling. Although I was full and was determined not to eat anymore, it called to me like a Siren that I was powerless to resist until every last grain of rice was gone and all that was left was this feeling of complete satisfaction, satiation and joy. 

That dish was perfection. 

That dish was Auroni. 

Ps: this is a bar as much as a restaurant and Pankaj Balachandran’s drinks are fabulous, especially the highballs (some of the best in the country) and a dirty martini that you can never bring home to your mother. The interiors are stunning and buzzing and the walk around bar is a piece of pure design genius. But the truth is that when you have Auroni in the kitchen, I will always focus on the food. And that’s what this review is about. 

We ate:

• Banchan from the Bajaar.

• Calcutta Temaki Tacos. Hand-rolled sushi tacos inspired by the Park Street favourite Prawn Cocktail. Salmon, Avo & Ikura. Kakda Cocktail

• Crudo, Capers & Tamari: Inspired by one of Bourdain’s favourites, Swan Oyster Depot

• Soup-Dumplings, chicken and dashi

• Smoky Market Greens, Whipped tofu, Chilli Crunch & Pickles

• Mala Fried Chicken, Hot Honey, Pickles & Kewpie 

• Pork belly char Sui 

• Korean bacon, banchan & Ssam

• Hamachi collar

• Eel and eggs 

• Shiozake Salmon, Wasabi Aioli, Pickles

• Grilled Galda Lobster, Malay Curry, Mopping Bread 

• Free-Bird: Grilled Free Range Chicken, Hainanese Rice, Fixings 

• Clear Chintan Style Ramen, Shio & Shoyu Tare, Cured Egg & Greens

• Hong Kong Egg Tarts

• Coconut Pudding, Nolen Gur (and a Mahua version of the same)