FoodVerse (IT Food Hub in Kolkata)
Savour the Flavours of the Food District in Tech Territory
Well, it goes without saying that our very own tilottama ladles out one of the most widely celebrated tongue-tickling flavours and aromas of street fare from her kitty of time-honoured recipes. I took a relaxed stroll around the busy Sector V business district on a lazy afternoon in Salt Lake to get an up-close view, and a first-hand taste and vibe of the IT food hub in Eastern India.
By PRAMITA BOSE
Mighty IT
The food retreat in the tech corridors of the City of Joy is an absolute feast for the foodies’ eyes and their guts to relish over. From the age-old modest pice hotels of downtown North Kolkata’s dingy alleys that hark back to the British Raj in the erstwhile Calcutta to the reasonably rated roadside foodstalls of the office para with their mouthwatering menus rustled up to tease the taste buds of white-collared babus at the Dalhousie Square to today’s happening eat-out kiosks at the EP, GP, DP, CP, EN blocks of the cosmopolitan city’s IT park — the vignettes of the foodscape doling out scrumptious goodies in every nook and corner create a wonderful collage for the gourmets to reflect on.
The interlocking Webel and College
More pathways leading to the gastronomical routes at the Electronic Complex of Bidhannagar are a welcoming treat for the millennials and the Gen Z
office-goers in the hi-tech haven.
Streetside Stories
The heat, sweat and the dust, the cloudy
smog and the maddening din or the hustle and bustle of life in a huddle, all make
up the trademark characteristic elements of kallolini
Kolkata, which are hard to miss and ignore. As much as the day-dreaming and
fishatarian Bengalis like their daily dose of afternoon siesta, they yearn for
their lip-smacking platters in equal measure.
Subhankar Samantha’s cheap roadside stall sees young guns and roses making a beeline for Maggie available in different versions (with boiled egg at Rs 40, in fried form at Rs 35, simply boiled for Rs 30), egg toast at Rs 25 with a spray of black pepper and butter toast for Rs 20, black tea for only five rupees, while milk tea at six.
“Didi, our brisk business was thrown in disarray during the pandemic
wave but we limped back on track over time,” reveals the shopkeeper with a
resilient voice.
“Our expenses are
only getting dearer with a daily electricity cost of Rs 20 and the monthly LPG
gas bill touching Rs 950 but we are just carrying on to pay up our dues and
make ends meet,” utters a smiling Samantha, reluctant to budge an inch in the
face of life’s struggles. His trading time is between 8 am and 9 pm, and he
noticeably keeps carom seeds in his shop to address the digestive issues of his
regular customers, if any.
Located diagonally opposite is Susanta Tea Stall. Palpably a busy shop, the enticing items like veg chop (Rs 10), chicken pakora (Rs 20), fried omelette or a sunny side up, samosas (seven rupees a piece) and jilipi (six) among others are just flying off the shelves like hot cakes. “Neither there’s a trice of respite nor a pause button to breathe,” informs the hired cook, doling out orders in quick succession.
Chicken being a
much-touted ingredient, it comes in every possible avatar, it appears. Lollipops,
pakoras, noodles, there’s no shortage of
its supply in varied forms. Besides, vegetable fries, all kinds of pasta (think
Italian!) with a foreign touch on the desi
plates, 20 types of rolls, veg fried rice plus two pieces of chilli chicken topped
with salad and egg chowmein plus two chilli chicken slices garnished with salad
are but served with similar precision and sincerity at the Ashok Abha Restaurant, named after a mother-son duo. If you want to
loosen your purse strings, all this may pinch your pocket at a somewhat Rs 70-75
range.
“We have an appointed cook to take care of everything. So, seldom can anything go wrong on our part. Our cooking medium is the safe gas cylinder and we make sure to buy clean water from a regular supplier to fulfill our requirements,” claims a young chap from behind the counter with ear plugs on to tune in to music.
The menu at the New Mezban Biryani Palace for breakfast, lunch and dinner could remind one of a royal banquet with lavish platters of biryani in egg, chicken, mutton and aloo editions coming in at a price band of Rs 70 to Rs 150. While chicken and mutton chaaps are available at Rs 70 and Rs 90 each, a half plate of chicken kossa is labelled at Rs 80 and a full one at Rs 150. A supplement of rice, meat pieces, potato slices, boiled egg and green salad spans between Rs 10 and Rs 90. True to its name, the shop plays a perfect host to its famished guests. “At times, we feel like eating a horse after attending consecutive classes with no time to peck at a morsel. Then such luxuriant biryanis save our day,” gloats a student with a backpack from a nearby management institute, eagerly reaching out for his plate.
At Flavours of Kolkata, a couple of stoves is put away due to the sky-high price of kerosene. Two radhunis (lady cooks) Karuna Dhali and Jashoda Sardar wake up at the crack of dawn to report to work very early so that by 10 am, their tables are readied with the day’s menu varying from breakfast, Indian, Mughlai, Chinese to Tandoori dishes prepared on a cooking gas oven to receive the guests at their venue. Further, light yet satisfying meals come in a combo pack of three rumali rotis with either chilli chicken, matar paneer or butter paneer at Rs 40, Rs 45 and Rs 40, respectively.
Colourful square tables with plastic chairs and steel plates seem a plain but an honest arrangement to make the customers feel at home. “Often innocence works and formality doesn’t. And that’s how things fall in place organically and more comfortably. Don’t be surprised if I tell you that I ditched my office canteen’s bland food to try out an item or two of finger-licking streetside cuisine here,” a visiting customer vouches for.
Jashoda’s stint at
the restaurant is about to culminate soon as her passport will expire shortly.
Hailing from a sleepy village
in Bangladesh, the housewife crossed borders to Epar Bangla to earn a few bucks to support her family. “I’ll probably leave in April before Poila Baishakh (the Bengali New Year),”
she informs about her brief stay. “My husband is a farmer back home (across the
barbed fence in Opar Bangla) and I’ve
taken a room here on rent with immense difficulty. I’m actually Karunadi’s next-door neighbor,” she chips in.
It’s small wonder
that the homemaker has great culinary skills in Baangaal courses to showcase and win appreciation from those
literally eating out of her hands.
Bandhan Fast Food Centre boasts three more outlets in the entire
locality with a loyal clientele lured in from the surrounding radius. To woo
palates from all walks of life, the eatery spoons out variety, leaving its
customers spoilt for choice.
Tandoori and rumali roti
plus haat ruti come in at five rupees
each whereas naan and kulcha are priced at Rs 10 per piece.
These are served with mixed sabji, chicken
kasa, tadka, butter chicken, chicken bharta, paneer, chilli chicken, chicken drumstick, veg tadka, egg tadka and so
on. A half plate combo can be availed at Rs 60, while the full plate is doubled
up to Rs 120.
“We prepare handmade rotis on heated clay ovens with burning coal
inside, which is a weekly investment. Our gas consumption happens on a daily
basis,” declares an active helping hand at the shop in between packing orders
in plastic containers, aluminium foils or paper thongas, all charged at extra five bucks.
One might disapprove
of the idea of using embers to ignite fire for cooking, throwing caution
against pollution to the wind; foodies nonetheless realize the emphatic
difference in smell and taste owing to the presence of coal chunks.
Mocktail Counter displays a trove of bottles containing some of the finest non-alcoholic
fruit juices like green apple and watermelon, soft drinks, soda water, mojito
in kiwi, mint and orange varieties apart from vending iced tea in fruity
flavours like peach and lemon, kamranga (star
fruit or carambola) in netted bags, cheese chilli toast, sandwiches, coffee-and-shakes,
burgers, creamy cheese pastas, plain rotis
with side dishes of veg, egg and chicken tarka
all under one roof. It is also fascinating to note that this place even
exhibits lottery tickets for sale against a QR code scan. Whether it gets an adequate
number of prospective buyers or not, that is something to watch out for.
Tucked away in one
corner, Prabin Chaurasia’s Shiv Shakti
Pan Bhandar is an amusingly quaint pan shop loaded with pens, cigarette
packets, tiny pan masala wrappers and whatnot. “The young generation loves mithe patta (sweet betel leaf) rolled
and sealed with colourful stuffing. It is good for digestion too,” states the
man from Uttar Pradesh, who stays in a nearby slum. Each paan is sold at Rs 20.
Repast on the Road
A plateful of oven-fresh luscious and fragrant biryani with a generous helping of a boiled oval egg and the yellow potato dome (so typical of the Kolkata variety); glazy succulent jalebis deep-fried and dipped in a cauldron of thick sugar syrup; a tray of crunchy samosas, oily fritters, flaky rolls wrapped in white/brown paper and roasted chicken lollipops; dollops of veg/egg/paneer or chicken chops with all kinds of spicy fillings covered with a sprinkling of appetizing salads in the form of onion rings, cucumber slices and grated carrots as well as drops of dripping chilli or tomato sauce; all-time favourite ghugni paoruti; tandoori and rumali rotis brushed with blobs of ghee, oil or butter plus plain puffed up haat ruti prepared on tawa (frying pan with a round flat base or a griddle used for tossing chapattis) and heated on unoon (clay oven) to feel like a fluffy fabric on your palate…phew! all this and much more could tempt you daily to stop by and glance through the inviting strip of makeshift counters brimming with a gala spread of khana khazana.
The large quintessential aluminium handis (cooking pots) covered with laal shalu (red cloth) to store biryani, keeping it warm; voluminous steel dekchis (round-bottomed pots) to cook the day’s edibles; enormous sauce pans to boil water and the brews; a pile of steel plates to serve the searing hot entrĂ©e after an order gets placed; the blue and green plastic water jugs; garbage buckets; the 20-litre drinking water jars; huge water drums; enormous aluminium tumblers to do the dishes and other utensils used for storage, cleaning and washing purposes; the ubiquitous black thermos or the tea flask; salt and sugar containers; curvaceous jars with multihued plastic lids to stock the inventory of cakes, biscuits, chocolates, lozenges, chips packets, fried flattened rice, puffed rice with salted fritters, et al piece together a jigsaw puzzle that is undeniably familiar to our senses.
As the sun sets and the curtain of evening falls on the crowded streets, rows of cars, bikes and cycle vans parked alongside the sidewalks gradually trickle out of the region to mingle with the main traffic on the arterial roads. The dazzling neon lights on upscale luxe commercial establishments like a pub, hotel, restaurant, off shop or a spa deck up the area, lending it a different look and feel altogether. Suddenly, the hullabaloo of human voices floating around for so long gets replaced with the deafening silence descending on a deserted stretch.
Final Word
It’s never so easy to disconnect the mobile phones and switch on that let-your-hair-down mode. But often this curt act becomes necessary to recharge your own batteries. Better you refrain from talking shop and enjoy a slice of life in the good food street. Trust us, you will never repent this decision. As the blanket of night envelops the IT precinct completely, a stray dog wagging its tail nibbles the residual scraps and crumbs thrown away on the pavement to lick its day’s catch.
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