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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Lounge Review | Kolkata Callin’
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Lounge Review | Kolkata Callin’

Kolkata Callin' serves both rustic Bengali home-style preparations and traditional feast specialities

Kolkata Callin’Premium
Kolkata Callin’

This adda’s love of Bengali food and culture is subtle rather than in your face .

Tucked away in a quiet lane in Andheri East’s Sher-e-Punjab colony in Mumbai, only the delicious wafts of home cooking can guide and tempt you towards the new Bengali eatery Kolkata Callin’. The owner, Sanjay Mukherjee, a former advertising executive, ran a Bengali snacks kiosk by the same name (just 5 minutes from the new location) for a year and a half before his latest venture. When other homesick Bengalis in the neighbourhood demanded main-course dishes at his hole-in-the-wall stall, he decided to bring in more chefs from Kolkata to set up a full-fledged restaurant.

The good stuff

The overall ambience pays homage to nostalgia to create a new-age adda—look around and you’ll spot copies of The Adventures of Tintin in Bengali, beautiful nakshi pakhas (traditional hand fans), Tagore poetry scrawled on walls, and even packets of the popular Kolkata-based farsan brand Mukharochak.

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Prawn Malai Curry

The appetizer section—made up of chops, cutlets and rolls—is extensive and we recommend you treat these dishes as the Bengali version of Spanish tapas or French hors d’oeuvres to sample more than a couple. The Mochar Chop ( 90), crunchy croquettes made with banana blossoms, packed a serious punch with a generous mix of chilli and roasted bhaja masala. Our order of Bhetki Fish Fry ( 240) came with two rectangular, deep-fried fish fillets marinated in a chilli and ginger-garlic paste. The fish in the Jumbo Tel Koi ( 260) that we ordered with rice was equally fresh, cooked in a rich, mustard oil gravy.

The star dish of our meal was the Shyambajarer Mutton Kasha ( 260), a slow-cooked mutton curry that trumped the Parsi café Britania’s Sali Boti.

The not-so-good

There are as many, if not more, Punjabi dishes right at the beginning of the menu along with a handful of old-school Indian Chinese starters like Gobi Manchurian and Chilly Chicken. While we were able to flip past them and stick to Bengali specialities, the servers and the owner kept insisting we order tandoori starters, gravies and breads like Malai Kofta, Butter Chicken and Rumali Roti instead. The wait staff also messed up the order in which they brought our food—they left the rice on our table at least 10 minutes before bringing out the main dishes and we were forced to doggy-bag the Sona Mooger Daal because it arrived after everyone had finished eating. We also felt the 400g farsan packet of the popular Mukharochak Sweet and Sour Chanachur, on sale at the restaurant, was overpriced at 300.

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Shorshe Ilish

Talk plastic

We paid 1,900 for a very generous meal for four with three starters, two main courses, two desserts, rice, roti and dal. Our guess is that 500 per head is the most you’ll pay for any meal here. Most appetizers are priced at 50-240 and meat and fish preparations are 160-360.

Kolkata Callin’, open daily, noon-3.30pm and 6-11.30pm, Plot No.285, Madhukunj Society, Sher-e-Punjab, near Tolani College of Commerce, Andheri (East). For details and home delivery, call 28368733.

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Published: 29 Mar 2014, 12:03 AM IST
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