The ongoing Bengali Food festival Maanch, Misti & More, at the Cayenne, a multi cuisine restaurant at Mercure Hyderabad KCP, celebrates more than the state’s culinary offerings. The restaurant was suitably done up with lights and ma durga’s face cut outs as well.
Master Chef Ganesh has carefully crafted the menu to showcase the delicacies of this region and offer a rich food experience with Chef Loknath Bagdi, at the helm, one can look forward to some authentic fare at this collaboration. “This food festival offers different varieties of authentic dishes from Bengali cuisine. One of the main purposes of this concept is to familiarise the Hyderabadi crowd with delectable Bengali dishes,’ says Chef Ganesh.
For the uninitiated, one must have a large appetite if you want to do justice to this generous pop-up meal that had been put together as part of the week-long durga puja celebrations. Started with entrees that included a plate piled high with chicken pakoda, macher chop (fish croquette), postor boda, egg devil and mochar chop (banana flower croquette) — all very perfectly crunchy and delicious. However, the quintessential tangy puchka won us over again and again as we went for second serves.
In the main course, of course, the traditional kadaisutir kachori (green pea puri) was especially delightful when paired with the famous Mutton Duk Banglow (mutton curry with cubes of potatoes and egg). The meat was melt-in-the-mouth and the curry was addictive. Here, we insist you try the much-talked about Bengali biryani — the juicy chicken pieces and cubes of potato in the fragrant rice will take you back to the lanes of Bengal. For desserts we had rasgulla, payesh, kacha golla, mishti doi and sita bhog. We took our time and lingered over conversation at this point — as we continued with the second servings of the star of the entire menu — payesh. The festival is on till October 5, available for dinner only, let your inner bong food lover arise!