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True-blue Bengali buffet
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Maccher jhol, puchkas, sandesh... it's a Bengali platter at Matchpoint
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TOUCH OF AUTHENTICITY The ingredients are from Kolkata PHOTO: S. THANTHONI
Tempered with paanch-poren (a five spice mixture) and sizzling with the distinct scent of mustard oil, Bengali food, as any true-blue Bengali knows, needs both attention and affection to be a success. Because a meal, in Kolkata, is not just about the food. It's also about atmosphere.
The Bengali Food festival at the Taj Coromandel's Matchpoint has got its maccher-jhol right, thanks to its Bengali chef who's evidently travelled from Kolkata with the ingredients. But when it comes to atmosphere, the festival smacks more of hamburgers than hilsa.
Setting an authentic Indian festival in a distinctively western coffee shop is always a challenge, since it involves taking on the essential character of the restaurant. In this case, the effort has evidently been made in a rather half-hearted way: perhaps to ensure that the restaurant's large steak-and-chips clientele doesn't get intimidated by the strains of unfamiliar spices and music wafting by.
The buffet is authentic, and features food that's prepared in Bengali homes: some very simple vegetarian dishes, and more complicated fish and meat gravies. Unfortunately, there was no hilsa on the night we visited, although it will — apparently — make an appearance later on in the festival, since the menu changes with every meal.
The Bengalis only eat fresh water fish, which has a distinct taste — far more delicate than its deep-sea counterpart. Here, the fish has been cooked in yoghurt to create a subtly spiced curry. However, my Bengali friend, who prefers flavours that bonk her on the nose, chooses to mop up the pabda maccher johl, a red-hot fish curry, instead. The mutton curry is rather tough, and a couple of the vegetables were disappointing, such as the aloo bariri jhol, agog with soggy dumplings. However, they are more than compensated for by items such as the deliciously spicy chicken cutlet and the creamy lamb curry, cooked in poppy seeds and mustard.
As for dessert, there's kala jamun: the plump, dark, delicious version of the gulab jamun, loved by Bengalis. And sandesh — which is tasty, although it's naturally not as good as fresh sandesh straight from a Kolkata sweet shop, since it has been necessarily refrigerated. And, of course, piles of luscious, juicy rassogullas.
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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