It takes a lot of guts to open a Bengali restaurant and mess up things.
Us Bengalis, unlike the Pathans, the Punjabis or the Rajputs, aren’t a martial race. But mess around with our food and we can write some pretty vitriolic prose.
From what I understand Bijoli Grill at Mumbai had a rough ride when they started but it was all good by the time I went there. It is my favourite Bengali restaurant in town right now.
My fellow Bengali dinner mates said that we should be a bit patient with the Bhojohori Manna that has just opened at Oshiwara, Mumbai.
“Teething troubles” they said with a smile.
I strongly doubt if they would have been as patient with a non-Bengali restaurant. Frankly this ‘new restaurant - handle with care’ argument doesn’t work for me as I still have to shell out regular rates when I eat at such places.
Bhojohori Manna was amongst the first of the spate of Bengali restaurants which opened at Calcutta soon after I left the city in the late 1990s. I never made it there on my trips back home and soon BM was out of the radar.
Recently one heard that the mountain had moved to Mohamat and that Bhojohori Manna had opened at Mumbai. A few of us made plans and headed off on the long drive to Oshiwara on a rainy night.
We finally reached Bhojohori Manna and saw the big board which said ‘valet parking’. On asking found that there was no valet.
Which sort of set the tone for the evening.
We went in, met our fellow Bengali friends. K, the lone non Bengali, explained how she prefers Bengali food to North Indian. Us Bongs scanned through the menu and our smiles began to widen as we saw the long list of dishes. This was a very extensive menu.
We began to order.
“Daab Chingri”
“Not there. It is over”
A good thing as we found out. Five daab chingris went to the adjacent table. Suddenly a sari clad lady on that table called for the waiter and said, “These prawns aren’t good. They aren’t fresh. They are smelly. How old are they?”
Again a sign of things to follow.
“Mocha chingri” we continued.
“Not there today'”
I spoke up, “But you have it on the menu”
“Yes, but we don’t cook everything everyday”
The service at Bhojohori Manna was very authentic 20th century Kolkata. The experience very Fawlty Towers.
Our dinner got off to a good start I must admit.
Nice fish and mocha (banana flower) chops (croquettes). Good luchis – crisp, light, poetic. A very distinguished and deep kosha mangsho. Well cooked, well flavoured. Served surprisingly with boiled eggs in instead of potatoes.
The latter as natural as Gautam Gambhir captaining the Calcutta team while Saurav Ganguly still hadn’t officially retired. But like the KKR team in this season the kosha mangsho did reasonably well.
And then things changed. The nightmare at Amherst Street began. It was all downhill from there. Barring the alu posto.
We were in a big group so we ordered the whole menu, whatever was available that is. And went in for repeated heartbreaks in the best traditions of those maudlin black and white Bengali films of yore.
A deep red coloured gravy dish came to our table. We couldn’t identify what it was.
“Shorshe pabda” we were told.
None of us had ever seen such a crimson rendition of this traditionally yellow mustard dish before…the shorshe or mustard taste was beautifully hidden as was any way of identifying the delicate pada fish which had been fried to charcoal like perfection.
The shorshe pabda from the Red Planet would be as welcome in Bengal as would be Guru Greg.
Then came a plate of fairly authentic looking caatla kaalia. The only problem being that we had ordered a rather expensive chitol maccher petir kaalia. Not caatla!
In fact I chose the chitol as I told our group about how my grandmom had served this delicacy three decades back to my dad on Jamai Shoshthi (son in law’s day). I remembered the boneless fatty cut of fish with just 3 long bones from then though I was just eight.
But there was a problem. The fish was full of tiny bones. On inspection we found fins too. This was not the expensive peti or stomach cut. This was the lyaja or tail!
We called the waiter. He denied this. Said they only serve peti.
Which is when I looked at him menacingly and said “aamra shobai ranna kori”
(We all cook and know what we are talking off).
The fake chitol maachher petir kaalia was as gruesome as it looks in the photo.
A mysterious lady in black came to our table and asked politely what the problem was. She looked rather lost when we said that it was the wrong fish. She floated off without saying anything. Only to make an equally pointless appearance later.
Was she Basil Fawlty? Or was she Manuel?
We wanted to check the biryani here. Called for an ilish or Hilsa Biryani. This is a Dhaka speciality which I recently learnt about from Kanishka whose mother in law cooks and sends it for him from there.
The pot of biryani came to our table. Expectations rose as I photographed it. Then a strange odour surround me. Folks started serving the biryani. And stopped.
The Hilsa was rotten. Spoilt.
We called the waiter and sent it back.
And as requested by the very polite and patient Rahul, I told them not to get it back.
The Mystery Lady returned to out table and went:
“Please have our nolen gurer (jaggery) ice cream at the end. It is very good”.
And disappeared.
Was this the the salve to cool us down?
Very sweet and rather red prawn malai curry followed. The sweetness not a bad thing as we found out later. We did need a sweet end to our dinner after all. We would not get our just desserts that night.
The prawns were over cooked but since the curry was the only non- low of the session we called for another.
The next malai curry came. They had slyly slipped in the more expensive tiger prawn which we earlier said that we didn’t wont. Anyway we were too frazzled to put it politely by then, mind eff’ed, by then to argue.
Thought we would call for the desserts. There was the promised ice cream from the Mystery Lady. We wanted some mishti doi too.
The waiter came to take our order.
The ice cream was over!
We saw the Mystery Lady walk off with a plastic bag full of containers without a glance at us. Ice creams we hazarded.
So mishti doi it would be.
Except those were over.
“Too many home deliveries sir'”.
I smiled and asked for the bill.
“He is so patient” said the others at the table looking at me.
I was just waiting to to ‘get to the mattresses’.
Or the keyboard.
PS For whatever it is worth, the experiment cost our group of five a reasonable Rs 400 (10 USD) each. Plus fuel. And a good dinner.
Comments
We visited a new restaurant called Dada Boudi in Nerul last week. 60% of the menu was unavailable. It took them about 25 mins to serve us water and a few more mins to get the food.
Ilish wasn't cooked that day because they had just cooked the same fish the previous day!
There was no dessert menu at all. Can you imagine a Bong restaurant and no mishti?!
Teething troubles? Bollocks! Just bad attitude and no business sense I think.
@Sayantani: 600! we paid abour Rs 300
@Scarlett: all Bengali waiters etc
Specially the lavish picture display of sumptuous, delicious dishes would even tempt a person with a full tummy, after a heavy meal.
Maybe you'd want to add a video or two in your future food excursions, in addition to the pics..which would make the experience for us even more personal and salivatingly tantalizing.
Edit: (Don't know whether 'salivatingly' is actually a word, but you know what I'm saying hehe.)
really sad to hear about it all. we bongs only rarely have any sense of business.
Thankfully the proportion of folks like you who give the business a good name is much higher :)
@Ren: I heart salivatingly
Thanks so much for you feedback. Just been a bit too lazy for AV yet
@Pinku the bones in the chitol really got to me
My word verif was really bad, a letter short of sheer badness ("chuta"), has someone cast a spell or something or was it meant for Bhojohori mystery lady :-D
@Bong Mom: Such language from a Bong Mom
At ITC I had the most wonderful, wonderful meal....I wrote it up on my blog, hope you visit, hope we meet, we talked of bringing you over to ITC Sonar for some functions....who knows what the future holds :)
Happened to be at Cal the day Ma retired. I took her to Shonar bangla for dinner. Dum Pukht. she loved it
Looks like they're teething and tripping. But their recipes have been authentic. Big surprise!
We are terribly sorry about the experience that you have had at our establishment. We would like to invite you to the our restaurant so that we can rectify the mistakes we have made. Seeing as we are new in Mumbai, and we import all our ingredients from Mocha, Bread crumb, to all our fish and prawns from Kolkata we have had a few minor setbacks regarding availability of items. I understand that we have made a few mistakes regarding your order and hope that you kindly give us one opportunity to make amends. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
Moyukh Basu
9987905825
Thanks for writing in.
I completely understand what you have said and sincerely hope that things have improved now. Lots of folks have high expectations from your restaurant and everyone will be happy if things work out.
Thank you for your invitation. Would definitely keep it in mind if I head that side.
All the best,
Kalyan
More than half the menu wasn't available, and the fish was stale! (I think it was paabda or some such)
It was a waste of what was supposed to be a grand Bengali dinner on my return to Calcutta after 2 years. I was livid, and swore off the restaurant.
I understand that their outlets are mostly full still. How do they manage it?!
I wouldn't risk it again, not unless I went to Calcutta (or Bombay) for a month and had a few meals to risk.