Dinner in Downtown Kolkata

I left the hotel last night and headed into downtown Kolkata for some dinner. I had originally planned to go to the Victoria Memorial and see St. Paul’s cathedral at night, but it turned out that I didn’t have time. I’ll be there tomorrow anyway, so no big deal.

I took a taxi downtown. I’ve learned not to let them use the meter and insist on them telling me the amount in advance. I’m sure the amount is much higher than it really should be, but for the trip downtown, which is quite a ways, it was still only around five dollars. I had the cab drop me at Park St. and Jawaharlal (Chowringhee) Rd. which is the location of many good restaurants. I walked up the street until I found a place recommended by one of the students, Trincas. I'm told that many of the restaurants on this street, including Trincas, were British restaurants from before Separation.

The first thing I noticed walking into the restaurant was that I was the only westerner there. This is usually a good sign, because it means that the locals think the food is good and it’s not just some slop pushed off on tourists. I had fish tikki, daal makhani, and naan, all awesome.

The restaurant had a live band as well which did a pretty good job of things. There were six members of the band crammed onto a stage so small that the lead guitarist actually had the head of his guitar jammed into the bass player’s nose. It was also the first time I had ever seen a blonde Indian woman. I wonder if it was bleached. I was hoping to hear a bit more Bengali music while I was there, but they mostly kicked out def jams like Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head, and The Police’s Every Breath You Take. Why the hell is there no London Beat in my music collection?!?

I took a walk up and down the street to walk off dinner. There are a few other nice-looking places along there as well as a big book shop (Oxford Books), where I hope to find a good Bengali cookbook tomorrow. I got hit up by a lot of beggars, some of them small children selling gum. Once kid, around fourteen years of age told me his life story about how he’s trying to go to school to learn English to make something of himself. He had a pretty good sell.

Here's a few pictures of Park St. at night. The third picture is the restaurant where I ate.