Kolkata, the city of Joy has a lot to offer in terms of its cultural diversity, its rich heritage and its ever so welcome hospitality and joyous rituals. Another of its highlights is its street food - amazingly yummy and cheap, probably the cheapest in the world.
When people talk about scrumptious street food, one cannot forget mentioning Kolkata. A variety of gastronomic delights are available on the streets of the capital city of West Bengal, and that too, for cheap. The city displays a special attitude towards food, attracting tourists at a large scale to try out the variety it offers. Every nook and corner of the city has stalls serving lip-smacking dishes. Despite the mushrooming of lavish restaurants and food courts, Kolkatans, ranging from poor daily-wage labourers to MNC executives, take pleasure in trying out the road-side delicacies. No one is embarrassed of picking up a quick bite on the streets.
One cannot afford to miss out the puchkas or jhaal-muri by the side of the busy crowded roads of Kolkata. Sometimes even Bengali cine-stars and celebrities are seen enjoying the roadside food. It's part of Kolkata's traditional culture to eat out on the streets. Be it egg rolls to momos, you name it and the streets of Kolkata have it. Street vendors with tasty delicacies to serve can be easily encountered in and around the schools, colleges, office areas, and at other places where people congregate. But, how they manage to sell food so cheap is still very much a mystery.
The street food is of a wide range. Students and office-goers get bread-butter toast, omelette and puri sabji as breakfast. And for lunch, one can start with vegetable soup, and end a four to five course meal, with sweets. There is a variety of rotis with delicious vegetarian and meat preparations to have them with. Food served between the traditional meal hours - chowmien, idli, dosa, uttapaam, ghoogni, bhelpuri, puchkas, jhaal muri and pakodas- is also high in demand. A friend of mine, an avid lover of puchka says, “My day is incomplete without puchkas! I can’t imagine a single day in my life without munching it...it’s just so yummy!!”
With Kolkata being an amalgamation of many cultures, city dwellers have shown a remarkable trait of accepting up alien culinary habits with open arms. Be it Chinese food or Tibetan cuisine, there is no prejudice in the City of Joy.
How can one forget the sweet tooth, which the Bengalis have? From mishti doi to sandesh to softy ice creams to cakes the city has a whole wide range of sweets at very affordable rates to compliment the various street food delicacies, which it offers.
All in all if one is in Calcutta one simply can’t sit back and eat out at the high end restaurants. It just won’t do justice to the rich and magnanimous food culture of Kolkata. So get up and explore the lanes of Kolkata. One will be amazed by what this entire city has in store for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment