Explore Odisha in its cuisine part-3
This is our day 3 in Odisha. After having Chenna Jhilli in Nimapara, we had call off the day and reached the capital city Bhubaneshwar.
Today’s itinerary
includes breakfast at Ravi Bhaina shop, lunch in Odisha hotel then finish the
day with home grown chat Dahi bara aloo dum and sharbat from lingaraj lassi
shop.
Ravi Bhaina shop located in unit-6 is famous for two things.
First one is for serving the tastiest Bara Ghughuni. Bara ghuguni is the classic breakfast of Odisha. Bara(Vada) is very crisp from outside and soft inside. Bara is served with ghuguni, curry made of potatoes and white peas.
The another specialty of this shop is Ravi bhaina use his bare hands while deep frying the bara in oil. He flips the bara, takes out from oil with his bare hands.
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| Deep frying of bara at Ravi bhaina shop |
We had Bara and
Aloo Bonda with ghuguni which tasted really good. Apart from Bara, they also
sell Odisha based sweets Chenna ghaja, Chenna poda, Rasagola.
After breakfast we headed to Odisha hotel, on the way we had darshan at Ram Mandhir located in Rupali Square.
Odisha hotel
started in 1997 with aim of reviving the traditional practices of not just
eating food but also its preparation as well. “People of Odisha used to prepare
and have their food in bell metal crockery which got gradually vanished in late
90’s ” states Mr. Rajiv. He is the second generation who handles Odisha hotel.
To revive the
forgotten culture, Odisha hotel still prepares the food in bell metal bowls,
uses most of the home based masala and also serves the customer in same format.
We are surprised by the size of plates they use. All the dishes are served in a
big bell metal plate, which weighs around 5 to 7 kgs with all dishes in it.
Coming to the cuisine, Odiya people make most of their dishes with the ingredients locally available. Chilika lake prawns and crab are famous here. Using of potato in chicken and mutton are common, which can be seen in Bengali cuisine as well.
In Lunch we had
aloo bartha(mashed potato), karela chips(Bitter gourd chips), Badi
chura(traditional Odiya dish made from pulses), Mustard prawns, Mutton kasa,
Chilika crab and the regular rice, papad, dal. We didn’t have Pakhal Bhata,
since we already had it on day 1 at Odianee.
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| Glasses made of heavy bell metal. |
It is a royal treat when you have lunch in bell metal plates and I am sure will you feel it. If you make a visit to Bhubaneshwar, give it a try and experience it.
Later in the evening, we went to Rupali square and had dahi bara aloo dum at a local vendor and Lassi sharbat in Lingaraj lassi shop. These two are suggested by the local people over here.
Dahi bara aloo
dum is made from Bara and aloo dum curry. Bara(vada) is soaked in curd for few
hours. This soaked bara is served with spicy aloo dum curry.
Lassi sharbat is the combination of curd, rabdi(milk based sweet) and dry fruits. One glass of lassi sharbat has filled our tummy and made it as our dinner.
So I would
conclude our Odisha exploration has come to an end with lassi sharbat. On next
day we started back to our home. But this is not the end of Odisha cuisine,
team FoodCulture will visit again to explore the unexplored. As mentioned in our first article on Odisha
Cuisine, I would repeat “Odisha is the most underrated food destination in
India”.
See you all in
next cuisine or thali.
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