I’ve rolled a couple paans here in the United States.  You can get the basic ingredients at some Indian grocers, or I understand if you live in Chicago or New Jersey you can even purchase one freshly made.  Unfortunately, in Portland the resemblance is quite mere.  The paans I’ve made were from betel leaves so astringent they were reminiscent of novocaine.  More anesthetic than digestif.

Not so the juicy, delicate leaves in India.  Here’s a pale-leafed variety, called Banarsi, hailing from, uh, Benares.

The essential innards are 1) the betel nut, cut in a variety of manners 2) chuna (calcium hydoxide/lime) which activates the betel nut, I understand and 3) kattha, a pale brown bark powder made into a paste.  This can be eaten in many varieties, plain as above.  Or trumped up with tobacco in various strengths (not for me) or all sorts of sugary things (for me).

On Park Street in Calcutta, I started buying some sweet paans.  Here’s three tucked into a banana leaf to-go carrier…

and filled with fennel, sugar candies, rose petal jam, cardamom and countless other embellishments….

The art of assembling a paan and the endless variation are great fun.

Here’s a paan seller’s station in Lucknow.  I wasn’t too snobby too enjoy the candied cherries.

…is Oh Calcutta!, a restaurant I dined at on three occasions.  It’s a high-end joint, with a comfortable atmosphere and great service.  They play hideous muzak from hell, but the food more than makes up for it.  I thought it was one of the best places I got to try on my trip.

These little morsels were outstanding, I thought:

Steamed in banana leaves, the first is a delicate fish forcemeat and the second a sweet mouthful of onions and fresh chhena, a sort of moist paneer.  This begs for comparison with amuses-bouche and would be both familiar and prized in an American restaurant.  Everyone (all Americans) at the table relished these.

They were preceded by:

Some puffed, mildly spiced lotus seeds.  The rest of the table liked these more than I did (a lot), somehow they always taste a little old to me.  The cocktail was terrific.  It’s green roasted mango pulp with vodka and a sulfurous pinch of black salt, just delicious.

This is sort of a silly picture to include, but why not?  A condiment convention that seemed unique to Kolkata, the chilli on a toothpick:

I suffered from bravado one evening with these at the Taj Bengal and had to order through a waterfall of tears.

Here’s a plate of Oh Calcutta!’s terrific white luchis, a cousin to the more familiar puri:

While I was in Kolkata, OC! was promoting a chilli festival.  Here are a few dishes from that menu:

On the plate, a silky bit of chicken, some pulao, a dish of squash and poppy seeds and kosha mangsho, a relatively dry-cooked dish of mutton.  I enjoyed the kosha mangsho here so much I ordered it again, on a second visit.

An order of sauteed chhena with green chillis, a simple dish of balanced, nuanced flavors:

I loved it.

On my second visit, I started with a small plate of spicy chicken:

I gobbled up almost this entire plate of freshwater crab:

Then I ordered this fish jhol, a thinnish curry.

I was stuffed, but I ate on.  Here it is on the plate:

For dessert, a malpua, flecked with a bit of fennel seed. 

And a couple dishes from my last visit…Oh Calcutta’s lovely mochar chop (banana flower fritter.)  The filling was delicately spiced with a kind of garam masala, I think.

And this is their lovely prawn cutlet, finished in a lacy egg batter:

When will I get to eat here again?  Soon, I hope.