Kolkata: Tiretta Breakfast, Phuchka, and a Tangra Table
The Chinese breakfast at Tiretta Bazar is over by nine. Tangra is a cab after dark.
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On Sunday the lane behind Poddar Court is serving Chinese breakfast by about half past six. By nine the stalls are gone.
The lane is off Central Avenue, a short walk from Central metro. Sunday is the morning with the full row of cooks. On a weekday, expect one or two stalls, then an ordinary market.
Sunday morning at Tiretta
The market takes its name from Edward Tiretta, an Italian who held the ground. Order a steamed bun, a dumpling, and fish balls in a hot broth. Pork turns up often, sometimes with pickled mustard greens. If you do not eat pork, say so before the first plate, and ask for the fish or a bun without it.
Afternoon phuchka
Phuchka is the chaat from a neighborhood cart. People also spell it puchka. The seller cracks a fried shell, spoons in mashed potato, often with a boiled pea or chickpea, and floods it with tamarind water, chili, and black salt. The cup should look brown and taste sharp. Mumbai’s pani puri water is often mint and green. Gondhoraj, a very fragrant Bengal lime, goes in when the cart has it.
Eat the shell as soon as it is in your hand. It softens in a minute. Taste the water before you ask for a full round. A flat pot will not improve on the sixth piece. Every neighborhood has a cart, and regulars defend the one on their corner. The Delhi and Mumbai versions are in Chaat Counter Decoded.
The market is a small breakfast. By noon, look for rice, a fish jhol, the light fish stew, and something fried. The usual order of that meal is in Bengali Table: Fish, Mustard Oil, and the Rice Sequence. A kathi roll is kebab or egg wrapped in a paratha, made to eat while you walk. You can find one around New Market, the covered market at Esplanade.
Dinner in Tangra
Tangra is east of the center, off the EM Bypass, the highway on that side of the city. The dining rooms sit in old tannery compounds. Take a cab after dark, when they are serving. The lanes are dim, and the metro does not stop at the door. Pick one room and stay. Chili chicken, hakka noodles, a clear soup, then fish or pork if that is what the kitchen has on the stove. Ask which dishes they are cooking tonight.
How those sheds became restaurants is in Chicken Manchurian Was Born in a Mumbai Cricket Club. In summer and through the monsoon, walk in the morning and take a cab to dinner.
If you only have a morning, make it a Sunday, and be in the lane before seven.