Bengali Sweet House

   
Puris, potato and chickpea mixture in tamarand chutney, pani puri water with cilantro and boondis.


The first time I ever heard of Bengali Sweet House was at my then boyfriend’s room at college.  One of his relatives had gone to the US and his mother had sent a care package.  Such a little thing, a cloth draw string bag filled with peanuts in a spicey crunchy coating.  I now know those were besan moong phali, but then it was something new and exotic, just like the boyfriend.  Over the next few years as we dated I’d eagerly await the next care package and those little fiery peanuts.

   The boyfriend turned into a fiancé and eventually a husband.  One of the little food items that I could never accurately picture were pani puris, little puffy crisp bread that you dip in flavored water.  I thought the man was insane, until we came to India for our Indian Wedding.  He takes me to this little quaint market near Connaught Place called Bengali Market and directs me to this open aired restaurant.  I had never seen anything like it before.  He orders me sooji ki pani puris.  O!  M!  G!   That combination of bite sized crispy crunchy puri, filled with a little diced potato, chick pea, and pomegranate.  That would have been good enough, but then biting down and all of this spicy slightly sweet water splashing in my mouth.  It was like nothing  I had ever known before. I could not get enough of them.  He also introduced me to something called chaat.  After the marriage ceremony we went back to the US and I had to forget all about besan moong phalli, pani puris and chaat. 

  Until a couple of years later we shifted to Delhi.  As the colony we were living in was very new and most of the stores catered only to daily needs or construction materials, we would often go to do special shopping in Bengali Market.  First we’d go to Krishna Stores, maybe look at some cloth, or see if something special was at the vegetable stand.  Then we would end up at Bengali Sweet House where I learned to love chana baturas, Indian Chow Mein, aloo tikki and of course pani puris.

  Eventually children came along and being the good homemaker that I was, I would drive them to school.  My husband’s company had a gym membership nearby and to fill up my time I would spend a couple hours at the gym and then reward myself with breakfast at Bengali Sweet House.  That time of the morning it was either chana batura,  aloo badmi or aloo tikki.  Depending upon the weather I would also have cold or hot coffee.  Now when I was in the US I NEVER drank coffee.  I don’t mean I would have it only occasionally, but NEVER.  However, something about Indian coffee did it for me.  I can still see myself on a cold winters day finishing my aloo tikki and chana with no green chutney and sweet imli chutney on the side.  Then enjoying that milky foamy coffee sprinkled with drinking chocolate. 

   As more years passed and the children got older, we often couldn’t go home for lunch, either due to play dates, birthday parties or just because we wanted a day out.  To make my life easier I would pick up a couple of packed thalis from Bengali Sweet House and then the kids and I would have a picnic at the Children’s Park near India Gate.  It came with everything, black dal, matar paneer, raita, pickle, naan, rice and salad.  That carrot pickle was how I came to love Indian pickles.  It started as just a taste as it touched one of the other food items.  Then I would make sure the naan touched the oil.  Then I quit kidding myself and ate all of the carrots. 

   As the kids got older I would often have to wait longer and longer for them to actually come out of their school gate.  In order to get more work done, I would have my driver drop me at Bengali Market and then he would get the kids.  Once my shopping was done I would go to Bengali Sweet House and order a drink, in the hot days it would be anar mixed juice.  I would then pull out a book and read until the kids came.  Usually they would text when they were about to arrive and I would have two anar mixed juices ready for them and two plates of Chaana kulcha, because they were more health conscience than I. 

Anar (pomegranite) Mixed Juice 



   The kids got older and I no longer had to pick them up.  Then they graduated and I rarely had a reason to go near Bengali Market.  So I wait until the hubby has a Saturday afternoon free and I make him take me out shopping.  I try and make the last stop Bengali Market.  I say, “I just need a little something”, he protests.  As we sit and I order us two anar mixed juices, he says, like maybe he could have a little something.  So we get ourselves a Chaana batura, an aloo tikki, pani puris and if we are really hungry a mixed papri chaat.  The two of us sit there sharing the plates, I push the green chutney to his side, he pushes the imli chutney to mine.  We each have enough onions to cancel each other out.  We cool down with the dahi and that crispy papri.  I poke a hole and stuff his puri and dip it into the water and feed it to him. 

  It’s just a little open aired restaurant in a quaint little market. 

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