Bijoli Grill
I was in Dilli Haat for part 1 of my quest for the perfect momos, when I arrived at Bijoli Grill. Which sounded more than familiar, since a handful of people had raved about it to me. Bijoli Grill is a 50 year old establishment in Calcutta, that these Delhi ones are branches of. Despite my six plates of momos rising up in protest, I sat down to have a traditional Bengali meal. I was not sure when I'd return and knew I had to try as many dishes possible to give this place a fair review. So, confused I shuttled between dishes, ordering, canceling, changing, re-ordering, canceling, until a generous Bengali lady took pity on me and gave me a few suggestions. Pheuf!
Here is the tumbling breakdown of the food on our table. In order of preference:
- Prawn Cutlet - Mmmm I really liked this. Crumb fried golden and crisp. With subtle seasoning to the prawns which was just right. Simple, delicious. Actually I had tried this and only this at the Bijoli Grill in DLF Food Chowk (Best of Food Chowk coming soon) before. I took this picture off another lady's plate next to me. Had it been mine, that mustard would have been licked clean with my cutlet!
- Prawn Malai Curry- Yummy. Thick, rich curry. Well duh, its made with malai after all you say. True, silly me stating the obvious. Even though it looks totally masala-d out its not. Has a very slight sweet undertone to it. Meant to be eaten with rice, but we did not have the heart to add one more dish to our table. So we ate it with the various breads we had. Worked well regardless.
- Vetki Paturi - Fish in mustard, steamed in a banana leaf. Fish was fresh and tenderly cooked. Its not the best version of the dish that I have eaten but it was still pretty good. This wasn't that tangy mustard Indians rightfully love with their fish. The flavour was one dimensional like mustard powder. I had to add lemon to mine to balance that sharp almost bitterness of the mustard.
- Mutton Kassa w/ Luchi and Rosgulla - So the mutton was tasty but not in some exotic Bengali way. In fact it tasted like any mutton curry served on the street or in your home. Tasty for sure, but avoidable if you are looking for something a little more unusual. Luchi seemed to be their term for pooris. And the rosgulla was not light and spongy but dense and heavy. The density led to it being too sweet, its like it trapped all that sugar syrup with no way of letting any out.
- Fish Orley - Fish coated with a thick cornflour batter and deep fried. Was good but honestly a little more seasoning on the fish would have made a world of a difference. On the plus side, as thick as the coating was it was fairly light and fluffy. Again, the fish was fresh and perfectly flaky.
- Rabdhaballabi w/ Aloo Dum - As you can already see this was my least favourite at the bottom of my list. Not that it was bad I just wouldn't re-order it. Now I did like the radhaballaui it was like a really soft fluffy poori with an extra treat inside. It was stuffed lightly, with a dry, savoury, moong dal ajwain (carom seeds) mixture. I wouldn't mind eating this with something else. The aloo was a bit of a let down. Flat flavour. Eh..