It is always a great feeling if one catches a glimpse of their rich cultural heritage on display in a faraway land.

This time of the year is where all the festivities begin & we as Bengalis mostly talk about the festival of festivals: Durga Pujo.

This post is dedicated to the ongoing Next Stop Kolkata food festival across all Monkey Bar outlets in the country where certain handpicked street food specialties of Kolkata are being served.

Bengali culture has a variety of aspects and it is very well known that food is extremely important to us. Moreover, the street food in Kolkata has an influence of multiple cultures unlike any other Indian city.

We were a part of the preview & we were impressed at the amount of research conducted before putting up the final menu. The festival lasts till the 21^st of October & aims to hit the emotions of Bengalis living away from Kolkata. For those who have never indulged in these, it’s time!  

Now coming down to what we tried:

Beadon Street Fish Roll, Girish Park Shoitan Deem, Chitpur road Chicken Rezala, Esplanade Mughlai Porota, Vardaan Market Moong Daal Pakodi Chaat & the Vivekananda Park Ghooghni.

We also tried a couple of cocktails which are a part of the menu.

The full menu consists of 4 other items which can be seen in the menu which we’ve put up.

The fish rolls in Kolkata typically consists of thin slices of Kolkata Bhetki, stuffed with a mixture of curried fish/prawns & vegetables. It is always served with Kasundi mustard. Here, in all cases there were some adaptations based on multiple factors, mainly because this is going to be in a bar menu. The actual fish rolls are generally bigger in size but they’ve replicated the taste remarkably & made them bite sized.

The Shoitan Deem is a hybrid of scotch eggs & Egg devils available in the streets of Kolkata. A well done Dimer Chop (Egg chop) will blow your mind! This was impressive with the runny yolk (6 min eggs) & the shammi kebab filling but it isn’t quite there. Moreover, egg devils are generally light on the stomach. This is not. Highly recommended for meat lovers.

The Rezala was our favourite! The delicate flavor & the traditional triangle parathas took us back a thousand kilometers. The white curry was aromatic & not so rich. Making the gravy richer would have enhanced the taste but it would’ve lost the “street food” touch. Very well executed & highly recommended. The meat was well done as expected.

We had mixed feelings about the Mughlai Porota. Although typically, Esplanade Mughlai Porotas are famous for being made with duck eggs, in this case considering different palates they were made with normal eggs. In the iconic shops, they are deep fried & very oily but here they are sautéed on a tawa & not much excess oil. The crunch was missing though. The taste of the potatoes were spot on.

Lastly, the Ghooghni & the Daal Pakodi chaat are ingredient based. These guys did their homework well & it tasted as good as the real thing. The ghooghni won the race because the Chutney in the Chaat needed to be more Khatta as the sweetness was perfect.

About the drinks: we tried the Thaanda Cha which is quality Darjeeling tea with a tickling kick of Vodka.

The 2^nd drink we tried was the Phuchka Pani Capriojka which was truly brilliant. It had a great balance between the Vodka, the Gondhoraj lebu & the Phuchka jol. The mixing was done perfectly & it goes very well with the items on the menu.

That’s all we tried, but we’re surely going to visit to try the Pork & Prawn Dumplings!

This festival is running across Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai & Bangalore & we would definitely recommend a visit.

We have our roots in Kolkata & felt the deviations but criticism aside, they’ve done an amazing job.

Do let us know about your experience if you visit!

We’ll be back soon with more news on grub.

Till then—believe in good food & bon apetit!

Ever felt like monkeying around?

We sure feel like it!

We’ve covered a variety of food festivals before & this time we’re going to talk about meal bowls.

This post is all about our recent experience at the Monkey Bar, Indiranagar, Bangalore.

We’ve been in the same building many times before (to Fatty Bao) so no surprise for us. This time we’re going to talk about the ongoing “One Bowl Winter” festival at the Monkey Bar across all its outlets in Bangalore, Kolkata, Delhi & Mumbai.

This is an ongoing festival which is on for about a month & a half more.

The best part about meal bowls is that everything comes at one shot so you don’t have to worry much about quantity & sides.

Without further ado, we’ll let you know which ones we tried & which ones we want to keep on trying!

Must tries: Panch Phoron & Kasundi Maach, Chicken Xacuti, Korean Bibimpap & the Kashmiri Yakhni.

We also tried the Nagarjuna Inspired Chilli Chicken & the Sesame Teriyaki Chicken Bowl which are definitely worth a shot but not as good as the above. The former was a spicy chicken preparation served with parathas whereas the latter is the usual Grilled Chicken in Teriyaki sauce.

We later realized that we had missed out on the seafood bowls, which we were really looking forward to!

First up, if you love fish, you have to try the Kasundi Maach. The fish used is Surmai (clearly written in the menu). They use fresh & well layered fish for the prep. The aroma of the Gobindobhog rice & the zing of the kasundi is always a magical affair. For a Bengali, this is a must try!

The Xacuti was brilliant. The goan spices with the tender boneless chicken tasted heavenly. Moreover, the millets tasted really good & went well with the spicy gravy. We had millets for the first time so either millets have a distinct aroma or they used Ghee in the preparation.

Now for the 2 best bowls: The Bibimpap & the Yakhni. 

The latter had succulent chunks of mutton in yoghurt based gravy. It comes with a serving of saffron rice & the combined aroma is overwhelming. This is a mildly spicy preparation. The Bibimpap is a popular Korean preparation with shredded beef. The beef in this case was simply irresistible. The sauce was lip smacking. This is served with sticky rice, greens, mushrooms & a fried egg. 

Although it doesn’t seem much, the bowls are pretty heavy on the stomach.

For dessert, we tried some Churros, Nutella cake with ice cream & a preparation with molten chocolate & caramel popcorn. This was a full-fledged Choco-indulgence! 

The Nutella cake is just amazing. The sweetness if perfect & of course: Nutella. The popcorn concept was pretty neat & worked out extremely well.

That’s all from our side!

This special menu is on for quite some time so don’t miss out. The preparations mentioned are truly mouth-watering. There are others which we couldn’t try so feel free to try them out & let us know how you feel.

We’ll be back soon with another foodscapade ;)

Till then—think about your taste buds & bon apetit!

If someone asks me to chose between chain cafes’ and  quaint , local cafes , I would always and I mean always pick the local cafes because I personally, am not a very big fan of the same taste of coffee plus I like to see what each of these places have to offer!

One such special cafes of Kolkata are the Mrs. Magpie café! And they specialize in beautiful cupcakes.

They have “bite size” cupcakes and normal sized cupcakes, but the bite size cupcakes are too cute to resist and they have so many flavors that everyone would have something of their choice.

There is a different kind of charm being in a cafe in your home town with old friends and loved ones, especially when the cafe serves grilled meaty delights.

These experiences can be relived again and again. The cafe under consideration is a cosy place with a musical ambiance and an outdoor seating arrangement. The name of the joint is Rubi’s Grill, located in Dover Lane in Gariahat, Kolkata.

Normally, we head out into the sun and attack random establishments but this time it was a different scenario.  We were back home after quite some time and we wanted to try out a very well known restaurant which we didn’t try before. 

This review is one of the “Durga Puja Specials” and the name of the restaurant is Jhaal Farezi located in Circus Avenue, Beckbagan in the Park Circus area. We were really looking forward to this experience due to the well known punch the food here packs.

The restaurant looks like a big old house, which is gorgeously renovated and it has several sections for different dining experiences. The place of entry has a courtyard with wooden dining tables with umbrellas for dining out and a bar which is made out of stone! The place of entry is similar to that of a royal mansion and we were escorted to the first floor to start proceedings ;)

The decor was quite fun, elegant and vintage! There were 3 rooms on the first floor and in each room there were portraits: each of different story line ups and they were rather interesting. The seating arrangements were very comfortable but the table space was a bit cramped. Old candles in the corners, high ceilings and beautiful chandeliers added the extra spice!

Now coming down to the lip smacking 4 course meal: