JOIN USThe unmistakable taste of Bengal
If you are looking for authentic Bengali cuisine, ‘Bangaliana’, located in Koramangala seventh block, is the right place to be. Started in 2002 as a small eatery, named ‘Fish n Sweets’, it was transformed into ‘Bangaliana’ in 2004 by Swapan Kumar Ghosh, after which it started serving only Bengali food.
There’s lot on the platter, enough to satiate one’s appetite. Right from a vegetarian meal to spicy and mouth-watering fish curries, ‘Bangaliana’ will leave you wanting for more. Swapan Kumar Ghosh, who is basically from Kolkata, opened this place as he found out that the City lacks Bengali restaurants.
“I came to Bangalore for my daughter’s studies. When we came here, we saw that there were no Bengali restaurants. Thus came the idea of ‘Bangaliana’,” he says.
The restaurant is a second home tor those who hail from West Bengal and Odisha as they get to taste home-made food here. For starters, one can choose from fish cutlet, mutton fry and chicken cutlet.
Non-vegetarians have a plethora of options in fish curries. ‘Bangaliana’ specialises in ‘mustard fish curry’ and bhetki paturi. ‘Mustard fish curry’, as the name suggests, is prepared with mustard paste and bhetki paturi is baked marinated fish in banana leaf.
If you think that the restaurant caters only to non-vegetarians, you are wrong. Even the vegetarians have lot on their platter.
They can have delicacies such as aloo posto (potatoes cooked in poppy-seed paste), chhanar dalna (cottage cheese curry), dhokar dalna (Bengal gram curry), baigun bhaja (eggplant fry) and aloo bhaja (potato fry).
The least expensive dish is the vegetarian meal which comes for Rs 100 and
includes daal, rice, baingun bhaja and other vegetable preparations. The expensive ones are the fish items.
Says Swapan, “People visit ‘Bangaliana’ mostly for the fish curries. The cooks are from West Bengal and Odisha. We do not experiment with Bengali food but make sure that the taste is same as what we prepare in West Bengal. Our staple food includes rice and fish curry and that’s why we specialise in fish curries.” He says most of the customers here are from Jharkhand, Assam, Mangalore and Kerala.
For desserts, one can choose from payesh (payasam), mishti doi (sweet curd), malpua (sweet pancakes) and the famous Bengali sweets rasagulla. “No Bengali food is complete without Bengali sweets,” he says.
The restaurant also serves aam panna (a cooling drink made of raw mangoes). “Earlier we had to bring ingredients from West Bengal,now we get everything in the malls. So we don’t run out on ingredients.”
‘Bangaliana’ is open from 11.30 am to 10.30 pm. It also has the option of home delivery within a radius of three kilometres.