A day in Kolkatta, City of Joy

The city with yellow-black taxis; the city famous for its street foods; the city where tram rides are still there; the city where pooja is celebrated at its best and the list goes on.

Stay - Hotel Lindsay
Lindsay which was built in 1978, is very popular among foreigners from that time onwards. On seeing the foreigners waggling to and fro in the hotel, we wondered at how we got such decent offer in a reputed hotel like Lindsay(INR 1800 per night).

Hotel Lindsay

I should state that the best thing about this hotel is its location. Yey! New market is just a stone’s throw.  And adding feather to its already heavy crown, it is having a roof top Bar and lounge with a stunning view of the city.

Pandal Hopping
Though we had experienced Durga pooja celebrations and numerous pandals of Jamshedpur, we couldnt resist ourselves from experiencing the pandals of Kolkata. We have asked our friends cousin for best pandals of Kolkata and hopped onto a metro train to Jatin Das park for pandal hopping in Kolkata.

Tridhara

Though we had plans to visit other pandals(Ekdalia, Singhi park and Hindustan club), we returned back to our room to find some rest.

New Market
After an hour of sleep, we decided to go on a shopping spree and headed to New market. Strolling on the streets of Kolkatta, we realized the perfect blend of old buildings with that of new buildings. 

Here's the view of busy lindsay street lit by a tinge of yellow in the night.

Indian Museum

Indian Museum is one of the oldest museums of the world, established in 1814. The Museum has rare paintings of Medieval age, skeletons of primitive animals and collections of intricate works on ivory and wood. The specimen of Egyptian mummy is another interesting exhibit at the museum.

Intricate Works

Victoria Memorial

From there, we advanced to the majestic Victoria Memorial. Photography was not allowed inside. The large marble building dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, stood tall withstanding the test of time. After spending some time in park, we made our way to park street.

Victoria Memorial

From Pandal-Hopping to Biryani-Hopping

Park street  – One of the oldest and most famous parts of Kolkata.We stopped by Zeeshan in park street to try their palatable biryani. Not completely satisfied with the taste, we headed to Arsalan, Kolkata’s best hotel for biryani. We stood in queue for more than half an hour to delight in their heavenly biryani. 

Arsalan Briyani

But I should admit that their biryani was all worth the wait. With a satiated tummy, we embarked on uber to Eco-park.

Eco park 

Wax museum in the park is one of my favorite place. Along with wax statues, the wax museum also has a vantage point to get a aerial view of Eco-park. 

Reading Tagore's poem

The park is situated on a 480 acres plot and is having a water body with an island in the middle named ‘Sabujsathi’ which houses cottages along with cafeteria and few restaurants. 

Aerial view of the park from Wax museum

The island is accessible only by boat. We got into a boat to explore the island. The island was well maintained and was having a restaurant in a house boat.

Restaurant in a house boat

We sat there basking ourselves near the water front.

Being Moharam day, we couldn’t even see a single tram in Kolkatta. Now I have a reason to come back to Kolkatta.

Kolkata - A Foodie paradise

Kolkata being a foodie’s paradise, we were confused to choose among the incredible variety of Bengali cuisine. We had plethora of street foods to be tasted along with excess of sweets to be savored.

Let me list out the few foods we had in our Kolkata trip.

Bengali Thali and Sonish Elish in Bhojahori Manna
We headed to Bhojahori Manna for treating our taste buds with an authentic Bengali food. We ordered a Bengali thaali and a Sonish Elish fish(Though smelly, it was yummy)

Bengali Thali and Sonish Elish(Top right corner)

Kolkata Biryani
When the king of Awadh was dethroned and exiled to Kolkata from Lucknow by British, it is said that the king brought his team of culinary artists to Kolkata because of his indulgence in food. Eventually due to scarcity of money, potatoes have been added to the biryani, to reduce the meat content.

Voila! That's how the Kolkata biryani had born!

We first stopped by Zeeshan in park street to try their palatable biryani. As we were not completely satisfied with the taste, we headed to Arsalan, Kolkata’s best hotel for biryani. We stood in queue for more than half an hour to delight in their heavenly biryani. It was all worth the wait. 

Arsalan Briyani

The marinated piece and boiled potato in the biryani literally melted into my mouth. My mouth is full on drooling even while mentioning about it in my blog. 

Sattu ki litti
Litti atta sattu snack with smashed potato. We had it in a local shop while pandal hopping. Slurpp! It was yummy.

For the Love of Puchkas 
Stuffed with a mash up of potato, coriander and chilly, these lip smacking puchkas dipped in the tamarind water are an all time favorite for me. Golgappas. It was quite impossible for a person like me to stop eating them(24 Puchkas for dinner-Not a bad count!!).

Langcha
No doubt Bengalis are sweet-toothed. From Rasagulla to Gulab jamun to Langcha, they have so many varieties of sweet dishes to savour. When our friend's mom presented us with Langcha(famous bengali sweet) even for lunch, we instantly got to know how much sweet serves as an integral part in Bengali food.

Aloo Dum 
We got to taste Aloo dum in the dinner after visarjan in our friend’s home. After relishing it, we were asking the apartment people for the exact recipe of it. It tasted best with roti.

Kolkatta Kati Roll  
How one can leave Kolkata without taking in the pleasure of relishing the spicy Kolkata Rolls? On the last day of our trip, we had our tasty Kolkatta Kati rolls in “The Tiffin Box”.

Mishti Doi 
A fermented sweet doi made from milk and jaggery. A bengali cuisine can never get completed without this sweet mishti doi.

From Kolkata Roll to Golgappas, everything we had in Kolkata trip was mouth-watering. I should confess that I literally went on a binge in this trip.