Okay, so what's this? Noodles right? Wrong, if you're buying this in Kolkata, precisely where this was clicked. If you're out to get some noodles in Cal, you must ask for chowmein, or better still, chow...
I didn't learn this for a long long time, in fact, it's only now on my recent few trips that each time I ask for noodles and the person mentions 'chow' I quickly understand what he's talking about. Earlier I would take time to think it out.
This picture is that of my typical lunch/dinner when I was in Kolkata for about a week. I was staying at a small guest-house in a place called Southern Avenue that's near the big Rabindra Sarobar Lake. It's a gorgeous little place, tucked away, cosy and amidst all the hustle bustle of south Kolkata. It's kind of become my home away from home. Whenever I visit Kolkata I end up staying here, and yes, I do quite miss the para when I'm back in Mumbai....
Well, back to the pic above, there was this tiny little food stall near the guest house that made these amazing noodles (chow), rolls and rice. I absolutely loved the Bengali touch to the typical noodles...so it was that once I tried it, I had it for lunch and dinner every time that I was not out somewhere and was in the guest house.
The noodles were themselves a bit different in taste, not like the packaged noodles we get here. They tasted a bit different but tasty. Strangely though, it had no vinegar or soya sauce added to it. Instead, he added the delicious kashondi, Bengali Mustard, a liberal sprinkling of that, and ketchup, topped with chopped onions and cucumbers...He did add some other sauces too, but they weren't the Chinese ones, it was a typically local Bengali flavour that I can't quite place...
Nonetheless, I loved it, so much that I ate it straight for an entire week about twice a day, much to my parents' scare who were worried there daughter would fall sick alone in a city that she didn't know much about. But I still had it and will continue to do so :-)
- Debolina Raja Gupta
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