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 :)