Don’t sleep on Bengali food!
One of my starting points for getting to know a place is by finding a legitimate looking food tour. In a lot of places, especially large cities that aren’t primarily known for tourism, you can find the kind of food tour that was started by a local with a simple passion for the stories told by local cuisine.
This is what I came across in Bangladesh.
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I connected with Rocky Hasan from Cholo Bangladesh online, and a few simple messages were all that it took to get started with a food tour of Old Dhaka. I loved the depth of Rocky’s knowledge around the cuisine. Dhaka- and Old Dhaka in particular- is a pretty fast paced and chaotic place. It made having Rocky such a bonus.
I definitely good a solid amount of food that day. Really good food. On top of that, though, I gained an appreciation for Bengali cuisine that I didn’t have before. In the U.S., Bengali food is often overlooked or swept under the blanket of Indian cuisine. But it’s absolutely worthy of its own attention.
Here are a few things I learned about Bengali/Bangladeshi food from my food tour of Old Dhaka:
1) Don’t say no to tehari
I love biryani. You know? Crowd pleaser.
Now let’s talk about tehari. That’s biryani done the Bengali way… and I think that’s the way I like it most!
Most biryanis have an aggressive up front kick. I like a good spicy dish, but sometimes it can drown out other flavors, and flavors like the deep, savory mutton and spice in tehari? That’s stuff you don’t want to upstage too much.
2) Never doubt Bangladesh’s ability to make a stellar cup of tea
Bangladesh is the site where much of the world’s tea is grown. For centuries the tea plantations of South Asia were exploited to meet the demand for tea in Britain and pretty much anywhere they had trade and influence… in other words, pretty much the entire world.
But the taste for tea is pretty strong within Bangladesh, as well. And while I was there I got to try a couple cups of teas I never knew existed.
Jaggery is compressed conical sugar, which is used to sweeten things, but in some teas serves as its own main ingredient. Needless to say, the result is a sweet, milky tea. Somewhere in between a Hong Kong milk tea and a Mexican cafe de olla.
I also had the chance to try a chili tea, infused with chili peppers and flavored with tamarind. Upon ordering it, Rocky immediately started skimming out a bunch of the peppers, so I imagine the version he let me try was tamed down a bit for a non-local palette. But I guess that was an effective move. It was tasty, spicy, and sour. Seemed like a great thing to drink before a singing performance or while drying to fight off a cold.
3) Bengali food isn’t so easy to come by in the U.S.
Even though Bangladesh and the West Bengal state in India have massive populations, and the U.S. is home to many South Asian immigrants, there aren’t many stateside Bengalis. There are approximately around 250,000 Bengalis in the U.S. and the vast majority of them live in New York.
This is unfortunate news if you’ve gotten attached to Bengali food. Your best bet at coming across some restaurants will probably be around Queens. In other big cities, it’ll be much harder.
Another complicating factor is that many Bengalis are aware that eaters in the U.S. aren’t that aware of their cuisine, and might put signs advertising Indian food on their storefronts. Understandable move, knowing that this affects their livelihoods, but all the more reason why getting to know the restaurant owners is always a smart move.
4) Working class neighborhoods make wonderful meals
I think whenever you hear the phrase historic working class neighborhood, there’s a pretty good chance that it’ll be a good spot to eat. This has been true from Philly’s fish market to the ramen alleys of Tokyo to Old Dhaka.
The rationale makes sense. People come to these urban hubs typically to look for work. They bring ambition, work up an appetite, and import the tastes and dishes that remind them of home villages and farms. This is why a “village donut” was one of the most memorable things I got to try in Old Dhaka.
You see these tastes and traditions then adapted for a much faster paced lifestyle. One where people finish a long day of work with a massive appetite. Food stalls, vendors, delis, and carts rise up in an effort to meet that demand. This is where so much of the magic happens.
If you ever get a chance to do a deeper dive into Bengali cuisine, I absolutely recommend it.