Paramount

There can rarely be a person who knows about College Street, College Square, Boi Para (an entire area dedicated to buying and selling of new as well as used books), Coffee House, but does not remember the name "Paramount". It is an age-old sherbet parlour located behind the College Square (1/1/1D, Bankim Chatterjee Street, Kolkata 700 073). The board at the entrance claims Paramount to be the "BEST IN THE TOWN" place to quench thirst, and thus depicts it's "paramount" importance in the world of cold drinks and sherbets.

The menu has some unique cold drinks which I must let you know before you plan to visit the place. Curd based cream rose, cream green mango, rose, grapes crush, passion fruit and cocoa-malai are only to name a few. The most popular and lovable drink on their menu is none other than the Daab (green coconut) Sherbet. The idea of this drink had come from the famous scientist Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray and the propreitors have rigorously maintained the standards till date. They bring the green coconuts from Bashirhat as this region provides coconuts with the sweetest water and thin layers of soft pulp. They use this water and pulp to create the magic. Most of the sherbets are served with ice cubes although cream based drinks may be served without ice on request.

This place may seem to be simple in it's appearance but it has witnessed millions of love stories and some great revolutions of the past century. Calcutta University, Presidency University and some other famous educational institutions are within a stone's throw and many college students prefer this place to gazing at the blackboards full of alpha, beta and theta notations. Young couples come hand-in-hand, two straws dip in one glass and stories begin. The place has also been glorified by famous personalities since the Bengal renaissance. All these has led "Paramount" to have an unique aura of it's own.

The appearance never changes. The board at the entrance still rightfully boasts of the quality. Couples who come back to this place find it to be amazingly similar to the one they had left on a hot summer afternoon decades ago. Their romance may have not fainted. Perhaps two straws again dip in one glass... Some things never change. "Paramount" won't.

Mitra Cafe

Kabiraji is an extremely popular authentic Bengali snack. It is generally a chicken or fish cutlet which is first coated with egg yolk and then deep fried. If you are a food lover and lucky enough to have tasted one, you probably know how difficult it is to ignore the tantalizing aroma of this evening snack. Mitra Cafe specializes in preparing kabirajis and various other chops and cutlets which, I am pretty sure, you are bound to fall in love with. The rich smell of these evening snacks, when prepared, attracts passers-by in the samy way as honeypots attract bees. I still remember the day when me and my boyfriend (now, a loving husband) fell prey to that magical smell for the first time.

The snacks bar I am writing about is located near the Shyambazar Metro Station (1 minute's walk from the 5-points crossing, address: 3/A, Bhupendra Bose Avenue). Truly speaking I have not been to the other branches, the oldest one of which is located on Central Avenue near the Sovabajar Sutanuti Metro Station. Anyways, let us come back to the Shyambazar Branch. We ordered kabiraji cutlets (chicken kabiraji for my boyfriend and fish kabiraji for myself) and the waiter served the food along with thin julienne of cucumber, carrots, radish and onions after 10 minutes. The deep fried kabirajis were crunchy from outside and soft from inside. The quality of the fish was too good and it melted like butter inside my mouth. As you may correctly infer, my (read 'our') first experience was awesome and we were planning to re-visit the place even before leaving!

Next time we visited the snacks bar with a common friend who had been to the main branch as well. He suggested to try some other signature items also which we might like. After a long discussion and an in-depth analysis of the menu which contained lots and lots of popular bengali dishes at extremely cheap prices, we finally decided to go for Diamond Fry, Mutton Cutlet and Mughlai Paratha. Each one of them were simple out-of-the-world! They know how to prepare authentic Bengali snacks... rather they have mastered the art!

The place gets crowded during the evening. Be ready to wait in a queue. But you know what, every good thing comes at a price. Legendary film actor and bong icon Uttam Kumar used to frequent the eatery to satiate his taste buds. I have heard stories about Swami Vivekananda loving the brain chop (prepared from goat brain!) which is still served here. But dont worry! If you dont want to be too much experimental with food, there are numerous popular snacks which are on the menu.

Dont know why, but I am getting hungry while writing this post! May be, I will try to cook some Bengali snack today to ebb the tidal craving for Bengali food which has grasped my mind :)

Nakur

Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Nandy's sweet shop in north Kolkata, popularly known as "Nakur", is probably the most famous destination in Kolkata for sweet lovers. It has been selling sweets for more than hundred and fifty years and has played an active part in the evolution of "sandesh", a typical sweet made from "chhana" or fresh curd cheese. "Sandesh" has evolved with time and there are hundreds of varieties being sold from sweet shops all over Bengal. The biggest player in this industry is still "Nakur" which is located inside a narrow age-old alley in "Simla para" near Hedua park. For GPS lovers, the actual address is 56, Ramdulal Sarkar Street, Kolkata-700006.

Girish Chandra Dey, who learnt the art of making sweets from his father Mahesh Chandra Dey, was the person who first made this sweet shop popular. He made innovative new sweets which did all the magic and attracted people with a "sweet tooth". He made Nakur Chandra Nandy, his son-in-law, a partner and since then the shop has been known by it's current name. Colloquially people use to call it "Nokur".

                                             

This shop first came up with the innovative "white chocolate sandesh" made from milk chocolate and "dark chocolate sandesh" made from dark chocolate. Strawberry and blackcurrant flavoured sweets are surely going to be a heavenly treat for your taste buds. People love this shop for the endless variety of signature items like 'jolbhara', 'aam sandesh', 'monopuli', 'malai roll', 'sarpuria', 'parijaat', 'kachagolla', 'monohara', etc which are surely going to make you start loving the Bengali sweets . During festivals like "Bhaifota" or "Jamai shashthhi", the queue of customers is longer than you can ever imagine. The owners are so committed to the customers that they keep the shop open till 1:00 at night on these days.

It is known that Swami Vivekananda used to visit the shop regularly in his early life. Since then, the supreme quality of the sweets have been maintained by the proprietors and the sweet-makers for ages. The demand has always been rising and the shop has been able to attract famous personalities like film directors Satyajit Ray and Rituporno Ghosh, actor Shahrukh Khan, cricketer MS Dhoni, just to name a few. Even the legendary actor Amitabh Bachhan relied on this sweet shop for his son Abhishek's marriage with Aishwarya, winner of the Miss World pageant of 1994. Nakur was also given the responsibility to prepare the congratulatory "sandesh cake" for the team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to celebrate their victory in Indian Premier League 2012.