In a nutshell:

Masters of Gravies, curries & fries, still a long way to go when it comes to tenderness of meats. Great place to try out traditional dishes that r seldom cooked at home these days but not a good idea to try basic day to day home food.

Address & other details: Ki Hangla

Meal for 2: Rs. 300 onwards

Cuisine type: nonvegetarian & vegetarian

Background:

Bengali food is usually associated with fish, meats & everything non vegetarian. However there r some extraordinary vegetarian food items made from leaves, stems, flowers, roots etc that cost minimal but taste YUMM e.g. Mocha (banana flower), thor (the pith of the banana stem), oal (root), bok Phool (flower), kumro Phool (pumpkin flower), kochu pata (leaf), kochu (root), lau shak (leaf) etc. These have unique tastes & flavours and most of these r different from the mainstream usually available Indian vegetarian food.

Bengali cuisine of today also has many Mughal influences like Kolkata Biryani etc. British influence shows upin the form of batter fried fish, orly, crumb fried chops, cutlets, fries , kabiraji (coverage), dimer devil (devilled egg) etc.

Bengali food also interestingly has influence from other unexpected Countries. E.g. Dolma came with the Armenians to Kolkata in early 1800s!!!!The Portuguese introduced Cottage cheese to Bengalis in 1600s& that is what gave birth to the famous chhena based Bengali sweets!!!!

Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:

For those new to Bengali language, Hangla (pronounced ‘hyangla’) means Glutton. Ki Hangla essentially means – ‘oh, what a glutton!!!’

As I entered the restaurant, I realized it was a real tiny place but with very well done colourful interiors. There were 5 tables with a seating of 3 – 4 each. The Restaurant was neat & clean. A live roll counter is put up outside the restaurant, beside the entrance door – that ensures ‘roll’ customers can take away their rolls without entering the shop. Smoke from the roll counter does not get in the shop as well due to a glass wall that separates the counter from the Dining Room.

In addition to serving cooked food, the restaurant also sells Bengali snacks like Mukhorochak Chanachur & knick knacks like Jharna Ghee, naaru (Bengali style coconut gur laddoo), hojmi guli etc. The wall is adorned with covers of Old Bengali LP records.

Home delivery seemed to be a large percentage of sales here as I cud hear the phone ringing quite frequently.

The Lady who owns this eatery manages the show herself & that makes a helluva difference. She gets live feedback from the constant customer interaction & that I guess helps her keep up the quality standard. We cud see that Quality of food as well as ‘home delivery’ on time was being directly supervised by her. When Love & Mustard restaurant opened in Galleria long back, the Owner’s presence meant the food was good & over time the food deteriorated as he started entrusting the shop to his staff members. I stopped going there after a series of average to bad experiences.

Ki Hangla serves traditional Bengali, British inspired food, Mughal inspired food, Bangladeshi specialities, Portuguese inspired sweets & of course Armenian inspired Dolma. The taste of some of the food reminded me of the food cooked by ‘thakurs’ (traditional ‘biyebari/shaadi’ Cooks usually from Orissa who were expert Bengali cuisine cooks) who are on the path to extinction after ‘Marriage Caterers’ have found their way into the Bengali ceremonies.

Ki Hangla also comes up with ‘special thalis’ & special menu for different occasions.

Food is served in aluminium foil boxes – the same ones that r used for home delivery – A concept similar to Dominos Pizza where they serve on the home delivery box even if u r having it sitting at the store.

As mentioned above, gravies & fries r awesome at Ki Hangla but the meats r not well done at all – something that needs to be taken seriously by the Management.

Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:

Continue reading “Ki Hangla (B 101, Supermart 1, DLF Phase 4, Gurgaon)”