A dear friend and a much-loved niece were coming home for coffee last week, and we were wondering what to serve them. Sandwiches were the obvious choice but we wanted to offer them something out of the box.
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That’s when I recalled a place named My Ranna Ghhor (My Kitchen). We had ordered mutton chops — deep-fried minced meat cutlets — from the place some weeks ago and really enjoyed them. So, I went through its menu — Secrets of the East — and decided to order some snacks and entrees.
We had, on two earlier occasions, ordered alu bhaja (fried potato juliennes — ₹140) and beguni (besan-coated, deep-fried brinjals) from My Ranna Ghhor. We found the potatoes wonderfully crunchy and the beguni crisp on the outside and deliciously soft inside. The beguni pieces (4 for ₹120) were large and worked well as a side dish.
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This time, we wanted to try something different. We decided on gondhoraj paneer tikka (6 pieces for ₹220), chhana karaishutir chop (6 pieces for ₹220) and chicken chops (6 pieces for ₹280) for the evening. For lunch, we ordered chholar dal (₹160), lake alu dum (₹185), lanka bata murgi (4 large pieces for ₹350) and ghee bhaat (₹120).
Lanka bata murgi | Photo Credit: Rahul Verma
Run by a family of foodies, My Ranna Ghhor cooks the dishes fresh. It sends them over either through delivery apps or arranges for the delivery itself. The menu includes various kinds of Bengali snacks, veggie dishes, meat and fish curries, and fries.
The snacks were a great success. The paneer tikka had the glorious flavour of gondhoraj lebu, a fragrant lime that you get in the east. The chicken chop, stuffed with minced chicken, was crispy and filling. I also enjoyed the chhana karaishutir chop, a cutlet with a stuffing of cottage cheese, mixed with peas, peanuts and raisins, dredged in bread crumbs and fried.
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Our lunch was most satisfying. The chholar dal (chana dal) had been peppered with juicy pieces of fried coconut, and the lake alu dum was a lip-smacking (and hot) dish of baby potatoes cooked in a tomato and yoghurt sauce. The lanka bata murgi (rather hot as well) was flavoured with green chillies and caramelised onions. The chilli quotient can be a bit high. So, if you don’t like your food too hot, you can ask them to go easy on the chillies.
Chholar dal | Photo Credit: Rahul Verma
My Ranna Ghhor also does a wonderful steamed boneless hilsa in mustard curry (₹850). I sometimes find boneless hilsa to be bitter, but this was done just right — soft and tasty pieces of deboned fish in a creamy mustard sauce, which I had with the ghee bhaat, rice flavoured with a dab of ghee. On an earlier occasion, I had enjoyed their tomato-date chutney.
Steamed boneless hilsa | Photo Credit: Rahul Verma
The dessert menu includes kheer jamun, mishti doi, payesh and baked rasgulla.
This is a place that I am going to keep going back to (virtually, that is) for the dishes are delicious and the prices are pocket-friendly. My Ranna Ghhor promises to be just that — our own kitchen.