Although it’s styled on a Northwest Frontier Province village, with food to match, one of the best-selling dishes at Taj Bengal’s Sonargaon restaurant is its Bengali thali. This is an experience not to be missed next time you are in Kolkata.
Taj Bengal opened its doors in 1989 and its iconic restaurant, Sonargoan is equally old. Ever since its opening, the restaurant has been offering city residents a flavour they hadn’t experienced before or at least not authentically — those of the Northwest Frontier Province — and in a setting to match.
The décor, styled on a Northwest Frontier Province village, is accurate, down to the correct kind of lanterns and the upholstery on the chairs, and has not changed since inception. The village experience inside a five-star hotel has been a runaway hit, and Sonargaon is now a Kolkata institution.
Soon, there’s a silver platter as big as a house in front of me. I roll up my sleeves and jump in. The next hour or so is culinary heaven. If you’d been craving a full-on Bengali feast for as long as I had been, you would understand.
Given the vast oeuvre of Bengali cuisine, on no day would the Sonargaon thali be identical to the previous day. The Bengali thali is all about balance, a balance of flavours, tastes and textures. Not one element is out of place in the Sonargaon version. How could it be? All the Bengali food at Sonargaon is overseen by Chef Swapan Giri. In fact, when Sonargaon regulars in the know find themselves craving the Bengali thali, they call ahead to check if Chef Giri is in the house. Only then will they descend on Sonargaon for some overdue pet pujo.
Luckily, Chef Giri is presiding over my feast, and is at hand to explain the dishes and even how they are made. He speaks passionately about his food, which is a good sign. I’m privileged to taste one of his classic dishes, the palong shaker chorchori, a popular dry dish which brings together an assortment of vegetables. In this case, the star vegetable is spinach, lending a delicious bitterness to the preparation. There’s the other Bengali classic too — chholar dal (chana dal to us) transformed with the addition of coconut. There’s papad, alu jhuri bhaja, chicken curry, fish wrapped in banana leaf, topse maach bhaja, plastic peper chatni (candied papaya chutney), ghee bhaat and fluffy luchis. But the showstopper that day has to be the humongous hunk of chitol maachh, usually seen as a muitha, but appearing here as a redolent kaliya.
The flavours are completely authentic at Sonargaon — I grew up in Bengal so I have more than a passing familiarity with the cuisine — there’s no fooling around with tried and tested traditional flavours here.
The most interesting thing about the meal was perhaps the sweet course. Such is Taj Bengal’s attention to detail that even the sandesh that is served with the thali is made to perfection by in-house karigars. It’s like having the best cooks and culinary craftsmen at your beck and call.
All in all, an experience not to be missed next time you are in Kolkata.
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TD Conversations: Arun Sundararaj, Executive Chef, Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi