On the fourth floor of The Forum shopping mall…
…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.
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