Hunt for Breakfast: Shakespeare Sarani

The third Sunday morning saw us hunting for breakfast near Shakespeare Sarani, Kolkata, India. It is a busy area full of one ways and no entries. We parked on the main road in front of a big sweet shop and Gallery 88. That is the place where M.F. Hussein had an exhibition of his 88 series paintings on the occasion of his 88th birthday!

The trio and toddler went ahead looking for a stall selling "club kachoris".  These are puris of a smaller size and crispier with a masala dal filling. There was quite a queue in front of the small double-decked "Arun Tea stall", we had to wait a good ten minutes before getting a plate of food. There were four people preparing the hot kachoris on the first deck- the preparation itself quite a sight and a display of their talent. One person in charge of the dough, another filling up dough balls with the masala dal filling third was rolling the kachoris and tossing them from his seat to the big fryer in front of the stall - sheer perfection, I could make a movie "bend it like the kachori walah". The fourth one was frying those little delicacies in batches of about 25 to 30 kachoris.

There were two people on the second deck handling cash and tea while two other men were running the service.

Presenting - Club Kachori..psst...we almost forgot to take a pic :P

Enough of description now lets come to the main point, the club kachoris. In short it was fabulous accompanied by a very tasty curry  of potato, paneer and chole as well as a pickled chili. Three and quarter of us had five plates of these kachoris and are now a die hard fan of the club!

The two and a quarter men of the hunting team with all focus on the shop!

We then crossed the road and found "Anna Ras" selling Gujarati delicacies - dhokla, thepla, fafda and many other things. It was interesting to see the owners entire family work the shop along with their employees in yellow tees and kurtis! We shared a plate of dhokla chat which was pretty good followed by tasty vada pao and sticky and sweet jalebis. I never had fafda before so got a parcel of that to munch on the way back.

By then our tummies were pretty full so had a bhar of tea each and put a full stop to our hearty Sunday breakfast.

Hunt for Breakfast: Flurys!

I couldn't postpone writing this one any longer. Well, tomorrow morning its gonna be a different place that we hunt, and the last hunt should get reported before that. Isn't it?

So last Sunday morning, the trio and the toddler went to the famous Flurys on Park Street, Kolkata, India. We were lucky to get seated promptly as we entered, because soon there was a big queue outside. The inside had small square tables strewn about, abuzz with chatter of the early birds. There were few big but empty tables with just a solitary guard on one chair, you guessed it right, reserving tables till the rest of group decided to show up. I found this odd at first but as the queue grew outside I realized the importance of the seat guards.

The breakfast menu was very interesting and pretty confusing one to choose too for the first timers like us. So we decided to go with the first things on the menu - English breakfast - with hash browns, sausages, eggs and bacon, grilled tomato, *sugarcane* juice and coffee, the Joggers breakfast - (we cancelled it later since there was no juice and had green tea - yuk! - instead we got two English breakfast) and Eggs Benedict - eggs and muffins with Hollandaise sauce.

Little one was busy trying out various packets of sugar on the table but soon was distracted by the counters showing off the exquisite varieties of cakes and pastries. He dragged me to check out all the "hap-ep-pen to you" as he calls pastries affectionately.

Hubby dear was a darling and offered to feed a choco-cake to the little one when the breakfast arrived. It was just yumm yumm and yumm. Unfortunately by the time he got to eat, the breakfast was absolutely cold which he didnt enjoy as much. On that count, we have a solid reason to go back and try their breakfast once more!

The bill was super bulky for breakfast, however, no one is complaining as the food did justice all the way. Looking forward to the next trip to Flurys to catch up more on the place, this time I was too engrossed to look up from my plate.

Hunt for Breakfast: Chinese Style

We had learned from a TV food show and later from friends in the city about the great Chinese breakfast bazaar near the Poddar Court area. The only catch, they are available only on Sundays and that too very early in the morning between 6 and 7 o'clock. That translates as leaving our home in the suburbs by 5:30 am to be able to successfully have breakfast. So after a long wait - of over two years - and finally shrugging off our quilts we started off last Sunday to have a taste of the breakfast firsthand.

The TV show gave us a vision of a misty early morning place where people were busy having Chinese soups and momo's and many other delicacies for breakfast. There were many food stalls on both sides of the street. People were sitting on small stools in front and enjoying their food. One little trivia I picked up from the TV show that it was rude and offensive to blow on a hot bowl of soup to cool it down! With all these images running in our minds we parked near Poddar Court.

Our friend cum guide was there about seven or eight years ago. He was surprised to not find anyone on the street that he remembered as the place of the bazaar. We asked around a bit and were soon in front of the food stalls. But what we met was a disappointing show. There were just a handful of food stalls and interestingly there was one with the humble  puri sabji or so we thought. But later we realized that a puri stall was on the other side of the road and this particular one was puri like but with a prawn in the center!

prawn puris...eh?

The ambiance was a major dampener, right next to the momo stall there was a wholesale fish vendor with her load of prawns and bhetki fish. On her side was again a frail Chinese man selling something in packets, I didn't feel like finding out what that was. It was an all out market area with its share of dirt and grime, not a place I would happily go and eat at. But there was quite a crowd for that food notwithstanding the place and its hygiene level.

rice pudding...from a distance!

We started off the food run with a plate of rice pudding, served with a sweet sauce. Hot and crisp on the outside and wobbly soft on the inside, this pudding promised good food. However the next plate of chicken momo thawed the momentum gained with the pudding. We had tasted much better momos at "authentic Indian Chinese places" - or maybe I missed the Indian touch to the Chinese cuisine that we are now so used to.

momos

That's the bun with chicken

Next up was a weird kind of chicken bun. A white steamed bread with a filling of chicken, eggs and onions. This felt totally weird on my taste buds. Just then around the corner I spotted the soup stand - near a wholesale flower shop! But me and hubby were too full already with so much rice items so early in the day. Our friend though got hold of a pork roll and with that we called off the expedition and headed back home.

Chicken buns being steamed

Hoping next Sunday we encounter better breakfast. Signing off with a few more images of the morning breakfast bazaar, pics courtesy hubby and our friend.