In a NUtshell

A little bit of nostalgia, a whole lot of (90 years history) past, an average to good present, when it comes to food. Excellent service. Nice ambience.

Address & other details: Aminia

Meal for 2: ₹300 onwards

Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian

YUMMRAJ rates all the food items & then gives a final overall rating, which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster

Short description- in case u r in a hurry

My first meal at aminia was around 22 years back. I know I did not know much about outside food back then. The family I had grown up in had emphasised on healthy home made food. In the last 22 years I have of course reversed this trend & have had a wide range of local cuisine & famous food (outside food) in all places I have been to in india & many places elsewhere as well. In days we are in town, we have eaten out often as well.

Well that time I liked the food at aminia SN Banerjee road, esplanade. Infact I have eaten there several times in the next 5 years after the first ever meal. I used to like it back then.

But back then I had not started exploring the food scene the way we have done in the last decade.

As per their official website, the first aminia Opened in 1929 in Zakaria street in kolkata & later expanded to other parts of the city.

In late 2020 when we went to kolkata, nostalgia kicked in & we decided to revisit aminia. Due to logistical challenges we ended up going to the Golpark restaurant rather than the SN banerjee road one.

The Golpark restaurant had a small area in the ground floor – mainly for waiting I guess. Two sofas & few chairs. The area was very nicely done – it had many old framed photographs arranged on the wall.

A nicely done staircase took us to first floor & we were in a nice & cozy air conditioned restaurant contrary to my memory of non AC , crowded & a bit of pandemonium always – that I had in my memory.

The ambience of the dining hall was very nice.

My memory of waiting staff two decades back was – mechanical, middle aged, not interested, bored.

We were pleasantly surprised to see a completely new breed of younger, warmer, more professional team at the Golpark restaurant.

The menu card was a one pager. Since we were two people, we decided to order one curry-roti & one special biryani.

Liked the taste of the food, flavours but severely disappointed with the texture of the meat. Their website mentions that they run their own buchery – I am surprised if ‘own buchery’ meat cooked by a 90 year old legacy kitchen can be suboptimal.

Is it due to the severe price resistance in kolkata? The animals need to grow to their largest size before butchered? & is that why the meat is tough? Some might say yes. But then it’s not like this everywhere. Price resistance I am sure is there for all restaurants in kolkata.

Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

We ordered mutton Awadhi biryani. We asked – what is the difference between this & ‘mutton biryani’. The answer was – it is same. The ‘Awadhi mutton biryani’ has two pieces of mutton instead of one piece in ‘mutton biryani’.

The biryani arrived & with it, a lovely aroma. The biryani had large piece of aloo in it & tiny meat kababs.

The kababs were dry & non oily – more like shami kabab in texture but different in taste & flavour. Rate the kababs 3.5/5

The rice of the biryani – long, soft, slightly moist & independent grains of aromatic rice. The rice had its own flavor, those of masalas & also of the meat. Rate the rice 4/5.

The meat pieces were good to taste but were suboptimally soft. Totally unexpected. Well, I thought it might be an aberration & probably we were not lucky.

Rate the meat taste 3/5. Flavour 3/5. Texture 1/5. Average rating of meat is 2.3/5

Overall rating of biryani averages out to 3.3/5

For curry we ordered their signature dish – aminia special mutton curry & roomali roti.

The curry was pure love. It was so different than most mughlai curries & yet it was so good. It had an egg, aloo, sliced carrot & whole cooked onion. Absolutely loved the taste of the curry, it’s Flavors & the textures of the veggies. Rate it 4.5/5

The meat. Once again it was suboptimally cooked & was tough. Rate the meat 1/5

Overall rating of this curry averages out to 2.75/5

We got a portion of this packed. Took out the mutton & pressure cooked it & enjoyed our dinner!!! Strange how there was a grave mistake in basics.

Overall rating of food at aminia averages out to 3/5

I am unlikely to revisit. What has been your experience. Please do write in.