Bong Bong: Bambai's New Bengali Food Joint

When Shirin decided to sample Bong Bong, the new Bong restaurant inspired by European cooking techniques that recently opened doors in Bandra West, she wanted to take somebody Bong along.

And I fit the bill nicely coz I am her perfect Bong. Coz I would sample the veg Bong food of course :P How many Bengalis would do that unless there was some festival or niramish food-demanding situation? Naah, very few. So there's me :D And I was thrilled to accompany her.

The menu was small, limited but versatile, formulated by Chef Joy of the Bohemian fame (Kolkata). The place is small, has an outside seating section, which the owners recommend. And an inside seating space that we opted for because we were being assaulted by the aromas coming from Khaane-Khaas, just next door.

The ambiance is laid-back and casual, the kind of place you want to sit down at for a long and lazy dinner. However, the seats are functional so you are likely to hurry up nevertheless.

The ambiance reminded me of modern day Kolkata in parts, the Kolkata of my family's home from 15 years earlier, with a bulky manual radio, the laaltens, murals that bring back memories of hand pulled rickshaws that crisscross the galli-mohallas of old Kolkata.

It's dimly lit, which makes taking photos a massive issue but some of you got DSLRs, yeah? And most of you don't give a damn about food photos so that should not matter so much.

While Shirin attacked the non-veg starters, which was mostly fish, I settled for bites of Spinach and Cheese Croquettes and Green Pea Nuggets. Croquettes were okay - you will not miss out on much if you let them be - but the nuggets were quite nice. What I like about veg Bong food is it mostly focuses on flavours and does not smother the natural veggie flavours with an assault of spices. This green pea nugget fit that bill well. They came with some grated veggie salad, which was more of a garnish than anything else. Quite okay. Also, Kashundi, the famous pungent mustard sauce that we Bengalis use to flavour most of our primary foods, was incorporated into a tomato ketchup - like a Kashundi Tomato Ketchup. Innovative idea but did not work wonders for me.

Then we moved to main course. While Shirin settled for mutton, I sampled the Cauliflower and Green Pea in Coconut Curry with some Saffron Rice. We have this thing called Fulkopir Dalna that most Bongs make when you ask them to cook you something vegetarian - this dish reminded me of that, only, it was in a Malai Curry format, which we usually follow with fish and prawns. Impressive, homey, I could actually polish off the whole plate of it. Highly recommended. Shirin was not overtly happy with her choice of main course.

With the main course, we ordered a side of this sweet Plastic Chutney. Now, for the uninitiated, plastic chutney is not really what the name implies. It is usually a finely grated or shaved bits of raw papaya, cooked in a sugar syrup until the papaya is all transparent - looks like bits of plastic in the syrup. While some Bongs serve it up just like that with maybe a dash of green cardamom, in our family, we add a sprinkle of roasted cumin. I told that to Shirin and we decided to sprinkle some on our chutney. The odd request went to the kitchen and we were given a small bowl of cumin powder. We tried it with said spice addition - heaven. Shirin and I were over the moon!

We then moved on to the dessert - everybody in tinseltown has been raving about the baked rasgullas. Now, let me make it clear that I am not a rasgulla fanatic but I know how inviolable the rasgulla is to us Bongs and you do not play with it. So we ordered it with some reservations and I hoped that whatever they did to it, as long as they managed to only uplift the rasgulla beyond the perfection it already is, they would succeed. A tough task that.

Which they sort of fell flat doing. The rasgulla, a spongy, soft, syrupy sweet that is supposed to not resist your teeth when you bite into one, had turned hard, I am guessing, thanks to the baking. The flavours were thankfully intact, soaking in rabdi, which added a nice little touch to it. But kinda hard rasgullas reminds me of how rasgullas become after 2-3 days of resting in the fridge - not nice. So while it's awesome to innovate, unless you raise the bar, not much point.

So, umm, well, it's a nice place and I guess I would go there again if I am on that street but would I travel to Bong Bong for the food? No :) What's awesome at the moment though? They are constantly changing their menu and trying different things out so we are all for an adventure for a while. Go try them out and perhaps, you will find something pretty awesome that you might want to recommend stays on the menu.