Sunday, January 11, 2009

Bhojohori Manna, Swimming Pool Area, Salt Lake, Kolkata: Restaurant Review

Bhojohori Manna at Salt Lake, near Salt Lake Swimming pool is a restaurant serving Bengali cuisine. It is a chain with multiple branches in the city, all being served from the same kitchen.
I have visited this restaurant many times, and have enjoyed the quality food. The last visit was on Friday, 9th January, 2008.
I have eaten at two of their franchisee restaurants: at Sector V and at the Swimming pool branch. In both cases the restaurant is cramped, densely populated and no room for a breather. Before the sector 5 branch opened, there would always be a huge wait time to get a seat in this restaurant. Now, in this last visit we got a seat promptly in this restaurant, which is quite a surprise. Leaving this particular visit however, during all other visits we have to wait for a long time, in fact often we have decided to move to a different restaurant as time is precious during a working day.
We had the vegeterian thali along with Mutton Dakbunglow and crab curry. The vegeterian thali is a good option with Rice, dal (lentil soup), shukto (mildly bitter mixed veg curry), alu bhaja (fried shredded potato), polau (flavored rice) and once choice of vegeterian entree. Since there were three of us we selected three separate entrees : Mochar' ghonto (Can't describe this in english) , chana'r kalia (curried cottage-cheese) and dhokar dalna (fried lentil cake,curried). The food was ok but as always I did not like the chanar kalia, the cottege-cheese balls being too soft and too sweet. The mutton dish was okay and the crab too.

Review
The vegeterian options are quite good, specially if you get few chances to taste authentic bengali cuisine.
There is not much options for meat eaters, this restaurant specializes in fish as non-vegeterian entrees. If you like fish, cooked in a traditional bengali way, this is the place to be.
This restaurant serves to the mass, not to the class. Be prepared for long wait-times, cramped space, people brushing around you and below-average courtesey.
The restaurant is fairly priced for its class, except for the fish dishes. Average fish dish costs Rs 120-Rs 150 for 1 piece of fish, which I think is very over-priced. (even for a classy restaurant, which this is not)
The service is prompt as they served pre-cooked food.
A meal for two will cost you around Rs 500/-
The taste is authentic bengali and the chefs are excellent.

Verdict
Go to this place if you want to taste some of the best bengali fish cuisine available outside a bengali home, and you don't mind 30 min wait for a table and below average service in a cramped room.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I visited Bhojohori Manna for the first time this Sunday. Illish Barishali was particularly fabulous. I hadn't a clue that our shorse illish is known as Illish Barishali, maybe the recipe came from far off Barishal. Though we went for the thali style we later concluded that if you are not too many people then better avoid it and go directly to the fish items with maybe a dal and a fry.

T Dasgupta said...

I visited their Bidhan Sarani branch today and I came away hugely dissappointed. I was led to a table with a broken table top. Food was absolutely bland, taste is much inferior to what we serve at home. We tried their chital fish, lobsters, dhanepata chicken, bhetli paturi, ilish bhape alongwith their veg thali (which they insist very strongly). Not one item satisfied me or my family. Bill came to Rs. 1747 for us. I would recommend eating at any roadside pice hotel frequented by labour class for tastier food.