CHILI MOMOS(Dumplings) & INSANE Kebabs! Local Food Tour of Kolkata India

Hey guys, my second day here in Calcutta and so far I had some traditional and modern Bengali food. I've had some unbelievable biryani and just a ton of kadhi rolls. And honestly, the more I eat, the more I want to eat. And today we're gonna start off right here at the famous Decker's Lane. Let's go get some street food. This is literally just an alley full of street food options. There's some chai over there, which I've just been loving since I got here. And this guy looks like he's frying some noodles. This is really good. You guys see all the spices in the noodles right here? Look at that. This actually reminds me of Chinese stir-fried noodles. I mean, maybe that's what he's kind of going for. There's a little bit of crunch from the carrots and onions. I love just how much spice there is in every single strand of the noodles. And not only are the noodles flavorful, it's got a nice smoky aroma from the cooking. This is a really good start. Let's keep going. The dish that's really known here at Decker's Lane is the chicken stew. Now, you might be thinking, well, it's chicken stew. How is that Indian? It's more of a British-influenced dish. And the best one is supposedly served right here. This is the original stall selling chicken stew. This is the chicken stew. It just looks like chicken soup. It actually kind of looks like the chicken soup I had in Peru. Some carrots, potatoes, green beans, one whole leg of chicken, but definitely not the extravagant amount of spices that typical Indian dishes have. Wow, this is another one of those dishes that is deceptively delicious. The soup is boiling hot and the chicken flavor, it's just off the hook. I feel like this little container of soup, it's just like full of, I don't know, chicken essence or something. Not only that, although it doesn't look like there's too much spices in here, it has just the right amount to really make this soup pop. This is the chicken soup I wish I was having if I was ever sick. And they give you a couple pieces of toast. Toast is a good dipping apparatus. It soaks up a good amount of soup. Even when the soup has made residence in every little nook and cranny of this toast, the toast still retains a reasonable amount of crunch. I think this is the best way to eat this soup. Forget the spoon. You don't need a spoon. You just need more toast. The chicken looks like it's been cooking for a long, long time. This is a flavorful piece of chicken. You're not tasting a lot of the spices. You're just tasting really good natural chicken flavor. Great start to the day. My next stop brings me to a popular restaurant called Peter Cat. That's Peter Cat. What they're really known for, and this thing is known throughout the city, is a cello kebab. It's cooked in Persian herbs and is served on a bed of rice, butter, and egg. Sounds awesome. Here we go. Before this came to the table, I knew it was headed my way because I literally could smell this just most magnificent roasted meat flavor hitting my direction. Yeah, my nose works like that now. This is for the future when smell-o-vision is invented. Here you go. Here you go. Have some of that. Yeah, just take a deep breath. Yeah, you know what I'm saying now? So many things I love on this plate. A couple of kebabs. I think this is ground mutton. You can see all the little herbs and peppers and spices that's just ingrained into every single available space. Beautiful what looks like roasted tomatoes. Some fresh herbs on top. This is the money maker right here. This crescent moon shaped kebab. Beautifully roasted chicken, tomatoes, green peppers, onions. And in the middle, check this out, beautifully cooked egg. The only thing I'm not really sure what to do with is what to do with this chunk of butter. They told me actually to mix the butter with the rice and then I'm just gonna cut open the egg. It's not really a runny egg. It's a little on the harder side and they told me just to mix everything together. So I'm just gonna let the butter have access to all the rice. Let me just get a get a fork full of rice. It tastes like, well, really buttery rice. The egg yolk is nice and creamy. Again, it's not runny, but it's not hard. Let's get into the kebab. Look at this. The kebab is just glistening. Look how juicy that is. You can see the beautiful herbs and spices inside every single little space on the kebab. That thing literally just completely dissipates in your mouth. I mean, it's ground meat. Once you chew it just falls apart, giving you access to every single little piece of that perfectly spiced morsel of meat. I love the little crunch from the fresh herbs as well. I taste the onions, the chilies, the coriander, the cumin. This thing's got it going on. Like a lot of stuff's going on. Let me get into this beautifully smelling kebab. I'm gonna take a piece with some onions, some peppers. You know what? I'm just gonna make a little mini kebab on my fork and that's gonna be my first bite. This chicken is just beyond one of the most ridiculous things I've had so far. I've never had a chicken melt so much in my mouth before until I met this guy right here. It doesn't look like it, but this thing, not only is it all disintegrating, every single part of that from the outside to the inside perfectly tender and just flavored perfectly. The chicken itself, there's not as much spices and herbs like the ground meat, but it just flavors so nicely. And I think the one thing that that makes this even better is that I can literally taste the flame. And these little pieces of char right outside the chicken, they break down and enhances the flame taste, the char-grilled taste that just travels all over your mouth through your nose and it ends up right here. Right here. If you get a piece, plus add the crispiness of the green pepper, the explosive sweetness of the tomato in a single bite, you'll be transported instantly to kebab utopia. And yes, that place does exist. It's right here. All right, the ultimate bite. You ready? Green pepper, chicken, tomato, mutton kebab, and egg. And we're gonna just chase that with a spoonful of buttery rice. I never had any like, like dual silverware team action going on when I eat before, but I'm excited for the first time. You guys ready? I might have to unhinge my jaw for this. Everything was represented. The spices, the herbs, the crunch, the juice from the tomatoes, the butter, the rice. It's like all my favorite elements all represented in that single bite. And the lassi just cools everything down. This is just like the end of a Disney movie. All dramatic, peacefully, happily ever after. The next place I'm going to is called Blue Poppy. Really awesome restaurant, I'm dying to try. But it's a little hard to find. I had to come down this like, just looks like a driveway and I get to what looks like an apartment building. And I think it's inside of this. It looks like a hotel slash apartment. And it says, I think this is the restaurant here. And this place is known for Sikkim cuisine. And Sikkim is a small province by Nepal. And that's why these dishes are very much influenced by Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, and China. So what we're gonna get here is we're gonna get some momos and some chili pork. This first dish is the tuk pie. It's basically, it looks like a noodle dish with um, I asked for all the meats to be in here. So there's some chicken, shrimp, pork. First bite of pork belly here in India. You got some carrots, green pepper. I gotta admit, it kind of looks a little unassuming. The soup is actually insanely flavorful. I think if you're gonna get this, you really have to get the one with all the meats in here. Because each different meat kind of provides a different texture. Like the pork belly is melty, the shrimp is nice and snappy. A couple of guests have come. And my meal is pretty complete. I'm really excited about this. Look at this. I thought I ordered a chili momo. I thought it was gonna be like a momo with like some chili on the side. It's actually cooked in chili and sauce and looks and smells amazing. And the chili pork looks like it's cooked in the same type of sauce. I've never seen dumplings cooked this way before. And look at all that garlic chili seeds and I think it's pepper. I hope this is good because there's been a lot of anticipation going on. This is some dumplings that's worth riding home about. My only thing is there's really not that much filling on the inside of this dumpling. What's great about it is how extremely thin the skin is. I'm actually really really excited about it. Look at all the garlic on this pork belly. The pieces of lean meat is just nice and charred. The pork belly fat just glistening with pride. Little bits of chilies in here to spice up the environment. You don't need to add any spice to it. This thing is a burning inferno on its own. This is good, but this needs to go with something. It really doesn't work on its own. You need to put this over rice or eat it with these noodles. What I'm gonna do is take the pork, take a spoonful of noodles, add the pork on there. In addition to the noodles and the now spicy broth, that gave it some additional texture and some additional fattiness from the belly. I think that's a beautiful friendship right there. Take a momo here, put it on a spoonful of broth. And this is a popular way that that Hsingan people use dumplings is we create a soup base for it. And I think I found a way to solve this filling issue. But what if we open this thing up and we just add a bit of meat to that? If you're ordering both of these dishes at the same time, I recommend you do that. Just taking a break from eating. A lot of restaurants in India close between three to seven. So my chance to take a break, drink some tea, get some dessert, eat some snacks and get ready to eat some more. And this is watermelon iced tea from Dolly's, which is one of the most popular tea shops here in Kolkata. And that is just really refreshing. Just watermelon juice and some tea. Finish this and it's time to eat some more. My next stop is a restaurant called Old 1590. And this is a really unique cuisine from the city of Lucknow, which is in northern India. And that city I wish I had a chance to go because it's a very much a Mediterranean city. And a lot of cuisines over there are very unique just to that city. And this restaurant here is supposed to replicate that type of cuisine. And what's really unique about this place is that it looks like a palace. And I guess it's supposed to resemble what the palace looked like back in 1590. I really like the ambience of this place. Hope the food is good. This is a really interesting drink. I really doubt that they had this back then. But this is called a Padang Sherbet and it's just milk with ice cream. I can see some different spices in this ice cream. That is refreshingly delicious. This is just what my stomach needed after a day of heat and spices. All right, I got four dishes fit for a king. I mean actually I don't really know what kings ate back then. But hey, it's good enough for me at least. So I got a couple of different parathas. This one is stuffed with mutton meat. Look at this. Oh, who is that? Stuffed with mutton meat. I see some different chilies, some green chilies, some red chilies, some garlic, some onions. The paratha itself is really thin. It's thinner than a lot of the parathas I've had so far. Every single bite you get that delicious Spiced up mutton meat. I love the slight crunch of the onions. A lot of fire comes from the chilies. You can eat this on its own as a meal and just be perfectly content. Everything about this is so unbelievably delicious. You don't need to dip this in anything. I think the only thing that can make this better will be a little crunch factor to it. So maybe sweet and spicy onions. Yeah, wow. This is one of my favorite parathas I've had so far. Let me show you this next one here. This is again a really thin paratha. Probably the thinnest paratha I've ever seen in my life. This is a Lucknow product. So it's something very indigenous to that city. And seriously, it's so paper thin. It's really airy and slightly crunchy. Tiny bit sweet. And they said it's best to eat this with these what's called galouti kebabs. And these are just mutton kebabs. First time I've seen them kind of in a patty. Check out this one. Look at all this juice that's inside of this. You guys see that? So just gonna take a little bit of this. And by the way, the kebab it just comes apart like nothing. Basically treat this as a wrapper. Some onions. I want to try this kebab on its own first though. I'm gonna try something. I have a theory. I'm basically spreading this kebab on my paratha like a pate. Look at how creamy this mutton meat is. I'm literally spreading this like peanut butter. I have never seen a kebab do this before. This is the craziest day. It's ridiculously, ridiculously tender. Wow. That kebab is borderline creamy. I'm gonna add some of the onions because this thing needs a little crunch factor because right now it's just creamy. I like the flavor of the kebab. I think the spices usually makes it very fragrant. I taste a lot of cumin and coriander. One thing I don't love about this is that it may be a little too creamy for me. And I have no problem with it being so creamy because if you didn't tell me that was meat, I would have 99% have guessed that was some sort of cheese. That's how creamy this is. But when I order a kebab, when I order like a meat item, like a mutton, I kind of want a little chew, you know? I want a little chew. I want to feel the strands of meat in my teeth. But the taste, the flavor, everything's on point. If you want to kind of just treat this, like I said, a pate or a spread, I think this will be really good for that. Look at this. I got a biryani that's very specific again to this city. And it's in this clay- That's pretty. This is the most glorious pot. Magical like clay food pot that grants food wishes. I wish for a bowl of biryani. And there it is. Not only is it beautiful, there's like little hidden treasures here. So this is a mutton biryani. And let's just rescue this. Check this out, guys. That was attached to meat. And see how cleanly it just came out? And it just- This is like an archaeological dick. Let me get some of the rice onto my plate so we can have a better look. Oh, there it is. There is the tender pieces of meat that used to be connected to that bone. There was a piece of the bone with the mutton leg in here and all this meat was connected to that. I feel like I just dug this out of the earth and all the rice is still the dirt that's attached to whatever I found. But in this case the dirt is rice and what I dug up is a piece of juicy mutton. So yeah. That's better than any treasure. Oh good lord. The angels that look over biryani makers everywhere. Especially blessed this one. Every single time I've had biryani in India, it's just been like a spiritual experience. It really has. Oh look, it just keeps on coming out. Look at this. This is one of the greatest pieces of mutton. If you are ever in this city, this right here, come to the restaurant and get this. I guarantee you, you're gonna fall in love. You're gonna feel uplifted. Things are gonna go right in your life because you have met this magical clay food pot. The mutton is so incredible. Like I said, completely melts in your mouth, but I like the kebab. There's a huge chew factor to it. And as you chew, the mutton, just the fat in the mutton meat just slowly sinking into every corner of your mouth. Just blessing it with this chorus of just magical fatty sensation. Until it just slowly dissipates, making you hungry for more. The rice is just buttery, fluffy, fragrant, a little spicy. Everything you want your rice to be. I wonder how much of the mutton meat is in here. Hang on, let's do it. Let's check this out. There is a lot of mutton meat. Oh, look at this. A lot of mutton meat in here. This is like one of the greatest things I've had in India. Now, I love the biryani here in Calcutta. I loved it. But this mutton really just, just, it's a game changer. It's a game changer. Now, here's what I'm thinking that can make this even better. Even better. In Calcutta, you can adopt this as your own. Here's what you do. You put a potato in here. You put a potato in here. This thing, I bet you, the rice will even become better. Put a potato in here, put an egg in here. I don't know if I'm, I'm not, I'm not trying to offend anyone's culture or custom, but because some of the best features that I love from the Calcutta biryani is the egg and the potato. If this thing had an egg and potato, oh my god. Like, I don't even know. I might just have to marry this thing right on this table right here. But seriously, this mutton is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever tasted. And that is what I feel like is really making this biryani so, so special. All right, guys, I think I need a minute alone with this thing and we're gonna get to know each other even better. And after this, we got one more place to go. So I'll see you in a bit. Last meal of the day. I'm gonna continue to feast on traditional Bengali cuisine because there are just so many great dishes I haven't got to yesterday. So Bengali food continued right now. And right here, this is the first dish and a dish I was told I must get, the shrimp cutlet. I had no idea what to expect, but look at this. This is one shrimp. I'll tell you guys, this is heavy. I'm surprised that that didn't just shatter the plate. Let's see what's in here, shall we? Cut pretty easy. Look at this. Herbs, spices. It doesn't look like this whole thing is shrimp. And I think this is some sort of mustard sauce. This cutlet is delicious. The outside, extremely crispy. And the inside, of course, just like most other Indian dishes, just a ton of herbs, spices. Emphasis on the word spices. The thing is spicy. Herbs are fresh. There's a slight sweetness to this dish. Perfect golden crunchy outer shell. And the inside is just infused with all sorts of flavor. Perfect. All throughout. This is a Bengali special. Luchi. Basically, big puffs of air. Look at this. I just want to like, you know, play around with it like a balloon. That was dangerous. Just gonna tear this apart. Hate to destroy a perfectly good bread balloon. Do what I gotta do to eat. This thing pairs perfectly with this doll dish that's sitting right beside me, which is also a Bengali special. Oh my god. The coconut flavor makes this just a little tad bit sweet. Very elegant, very smooth lentil. And it matches perfectly with the oil and the slight crispiness of the luchi here. These two things definitely go so well together. This is the kasha manchow. It's a stir-fried mutton with just a little gravy on the side here. And every single dish I'm getting here is a very traditional Bengali dish. Oh. Hello, beautiful. After having one of the best mutton dishes at the previous place, I was really skeptical I would like this because, man, that dish was good. But this, this thing just took me on a ride through flavor town. The other mutton dish, it was very subtle flavoring. It was beautiful, tender, but very subtle flavoring. My heart's like, like heating up from all the spices that's in here. I mean, this is really aggressively seasoned. Very spicy, explosive flavors. Let me just eat this with the little luchi here. Wow, there's no escaping the sauce here. So every single little piece of meat is just absolutely just, just drenched with this fiery inferno of a gravy. And it is absolutely sensational. And also what's great is that this dish is cooked for hours. So that flavor, it's everywhere. It has penetrated every single cell of the, of the mutton here. The flavor is just so intense. And the last dish I want to try here. This fish is called hilsa. It's a fish that's very indigenous to this area. And this is actually the same fish I had yesterday. Hey, vegetables. Wow, don't see that a lot here. You can tell how much meat I've been eating because like I, I am, I, I am eyeing the, the green beans and carrots and the baby corn more than I am eyeing the fish. This fish comes with a ton of bones, but because it's cooked in a low heat oven, all the bones, I guess they become really, really soft and just basically disappear. Oh my god. This thing tastes just as good as the version I had yesterday. This is one of my favorite fish, seriously. It's got such a unique flavor. This version is of course cooked with much more seasoning. That doesn't take away from how good this fish is. Very peppery, very mustardy. Everything, it just enhances how beautifully smooth and delicious the fish is. Um, if you guys never had this fish, which most likely you haven't if you haven't been around this area, this fish has a really good flavor to it. And it's a very distinct, very delicious flavor. And, and the word sound doesn't really just mean fragrant. It, it sort of implies that as I'm chewing it, it just releases so much aroma and flavor that it just, it permeates throughout your mouth and almost like it almost overwhelms your, your taste buds, almost overwhelms it. Like seriously, some of the tastiest fish ever is, is right here. Let me try something. Grab my luchi, piece of the fish. Does, does fish go well with mutton? I guess we'll see. Some of the dao. A lot of you guys might be, uh, getting very, very uncomfortable with me doing this right now. I'm not really sure, but hey, you know what? It's my food. I can do what I want. A piece of the chef cutlet. Let's make it a little healthier. Let's counter that. Erase all the health benefits with a, with a couple of fries here. What do you think? Oh, a little scared? Might not be so good? I'll let you know. I think I'm gonna just build a, a, a food Frankenstein, but cheers everybody. If this is wrong, I don't want to know what's right. Because this is flavor at its finest. Oh my gosh. I'm not kidding in the slightest way. There's a little wrap that I just created. It's unicorn. It's leprechaun. It's magical. Every single dish I have, I've had tonight has been great and it had its own distinctive characteristics. The shrimp cutlet, super crunchy, nice and herby on the inside. The mutton, a lot of heat, a lot of tenderness. The dao, fragrant coconut flavors. And the fish, deliciously distinct. And of course, french fries are french fries. All that put together inside a delightfully soft, beautiful luchi. You guys can't imagine where this goes, right? I mean, basically, all the flavors are represented. All the textures are represented. And that, that's what's going inside your mouth right now. What a great way to wrap up today. You get it? Wrap? I just ate them. Anyway, after coming to this city, Bengali cuisine, whether it's traditional or modern and fusion, none of the dishes has let me down so far. Like everything I tried, absolutely mind-blowing. So if you guys ever make your way to this city, give them a try. I guarantee you're gonna love it as much as I do. And of course guys, all the places I went to is again listed for you in my description box below. And I've been getting some messages from you guys about not receiving notifications from YouTube when I upload a video. So I just want to remind everyone to click on that little bell looking thingy so you get all the notifications. I would really appreciate that very much. Again, thank you all so much for watching and until we all eat again, see you later.