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A sweet journey
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One of the city's favourite eateries, the pioneering K.C. Das, turns 75
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MILESTONE The eatery is also an informal art gallery Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.
Bangalore may have grown beyond recognition in the last decade, but there have still remained a few institutions that help retain its old-world flavour. And few have had the resilience of K.C. Das. Built on years of quality products and popularity based only by word of mouth, the K.C. Das chain passed another milestone last month as it turned 75.
And to think it all happened because the city had a good supply of cow's milk. According to Biren Das, the director of the company, one of the primary reasons for his father Sarada Charan Das to choose the city to set up a factory was the availability of quality cow's milk. At the time, the Milk Trade Control Order of 1965 was smothering the K.C. Das enterprise in Calcutta, and the chain was facing severe difficulties. Consequently, Sarada Charan toured the country in search of areas to expand to, and finally landed here.
The K.C. Das story in Bangalore isn't one of starting from scratch and building upwards gradually. On the contrary, Sarada Charan, with great foresight, built big from the start, bringing down close to a dozen trained men from Calcutta to get things off the ground and set up a small factory whose output could match the demand he predicted.
But things didn't get off to a rocking start. At the time, M.G. Road was nothing more than a collection of a dozen commercial establishments and shut down completely no later than 6 p.m. Less than half a dozen reputed eateries served the Cantonment area, and a Bengali sweet shop was an unheard of entity. "When we first introduced the rossogolla, people called it white jamun and ate it like jamun, crushing it into small pieces under their spoon before popping them into their mouth," says Gilbert, manager at K.C. Das. In the first three years, the company was in dire straits and did not begin breaking even until 1976.
The best
From '76, however, there was no looking back. Today, the K.C. Das rossogolla is wildly famous across the country. "We often have people coming all the way from Chennai or Delhi for a taste of our rossogollas," says Biren Das. This delectable sweet differs from its counterparts made in other stores in that it doesn't have any binder for the paneer or casein. Moreover, the syrup is much lighter, with a very low quantity of sugar giving it an airiness that few others manage. In fact, the soft casein taste has worked so well for the store that even their gulab jamuns contain a proportion of paneer to give them their distinctive feel.
However, clarifies Gilbert, the idiosyncratic rossogolla isn't the store's fastest mover. On the contrary, their sonepapri flies off the shelves at speeds that cannot be matched by any other sweet. Its shelf life, together with its crunchy, fibrous feel, makes it a great hit, particularly with young children. Today, says Gilbert, the store sells over 3,000 pieces of sonepapris each day.
Another big change that has come over K.C. Das is its transformation from a Bengali sweet shop to a North Indian sweet shop. In fact, Bengalis are now one of the smallest customer populations at the outlet. "More than 60-70 per cent of our customers are Marwaris or Gujaratis. We also get more south Indians than Bengalis because the mishti dahi is very popular with south Indians."
The mishti dahi, and its more exotic cousin the fruit yoghurt, are two of the best ways to cool off on a blistering summer day. Made from yoghurt cultures imported from Denmark, the fruit yoghurt in particular is understated and smooth, never too sweet or too rich.
The eatery is looking to add on an array of south Indian sweets to its already wide range of choices. Even without the new additions, K.C. Das already boasts an impressive repertoire of sinful delights. Among the sweets, for instance, one can pick from over 50 different options, including notable favourites rossomalai, kaju and badam katlis, and that old Bengali favourite, sondesh. The savouries too are great, particularly the singara (samosa), luchi and the various kachoris. A personal favourite is the paneer capsicum chop, which strongly resembles a cutlet, crunchy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside.
For those wondering about how the sweetshop has managed to maintain standards for all these years, K.C. Das runs a quality-testing laboratory on its premises that has been recognised by the Government. However, the final say in the matter lies with a more foolproof authority, Biren Das himself, who possesses a tongue raised on the authentic K.C. Das taste. To this day, he samples every batch of sweets made, and all adjustments to proportions of ingredients are done based on his judgment.
K.C. Das is located at 48 (3), St. Mark's Road and can be contacted on 25585672 or 55332076. There are also numerous franchisee outlets of the store spread across the city.
Ambience: Comfortable
Service: Satisfactory
Speciality: Rossogolla
Wallet factor: Pretty reasonable
RAKESH MEHAR
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