There’s a popular restaurant on Park Street in Calcutta called Mocambo. I use the word “popular” because if you get there for dinner after 8pm on a weekend, you can be rest assured of at least a half an hour waiting time. WHICH given their food is shocking! To me at least. The restaurant serves Indian & Continental cuisine, though it’s more popular for its Continental fare. People say Mocambo's the way to go if you like Continental.
Continental food, my ass!!
I ordered lasagna. Now, we all know that lasagna consists of layers of meat, flat pasta sheets, tomato pasta sauce & cheese. At Mocambo, they believe in flavoring the meat in their lasagna with Indian spices & garnishing the dish with chopped raw tomatoes!! Absolutely horrifying!!! That’s a Calcuttan’s idea of a lasagna??
My cousin ordered a spaghetti carbonara that had no flavor whatsoever. My uncle, who was treating us, turned out to be the most sensible of us all & went with Indian food. Not much chance for a restaurant to go wrong with that. Thank God they didn’t, or I would’ve really doubted their right to even exist in the food business at all.
Mocambo is not cheap. Each continental dish costs around 200 bucs & the portions are rather small. It’s also one of the restaurants that makes me question the taste of the people of Calcutta when it comes to non-Indian, non-Chinese food. They really don’t know other cuisines at all – something that’s validated by the fact that a restaurant that serves such monstrosity is so popular. Even other Continental restaurants such as Taaja’s on Ballygunge Circular Road & One Step Up on Park Street don’t fare much better. Marco Polo on Lansdowne Road is a better bet for Continental food any day.
3 comments:
I am a big Mocambo fan. But off only two dishes - Fish a la Diana and devilled crabs. Came to think of I'd ordered sweet corn soup ages back there which was lumpy and a chipolota where the salami had gone bad and they didn't care when we pointed it out. So you might have a point
@The Knife - Mocambo didn't even have chilly flakes, oregano or any Italian seasoning & they call themselves a Continental restaurant! And most restaurants in Calcutta don't care about their customers. They have a take-it or leave-it attitude & don't hesitate to say 'no'. They act as if they're doing their customers a favor by feeding them. While I can handle that sort of rude behavior at a place I'm paying Rs 100 per person for a meal, it's completely unacceptable at restaurants where you end up paying anything above Rs 200 per person!!
Don't give flying F pretty much sums up the attitude of shops at Calcutta. have you ever tried convncing anyone to sell you anything at Dakshinapan.
Having said that, I was pleasently surprised to see the change in some new places this time.
The folks at Flurys were nice if you remember. As were those at Zara and Benjorang. And the lady at South City Flurys too.
Service in Mumbai restaruants are civil but uninformed and unenthusiastic. What I liked about Cal this time was that each person could answer my questions with full earnestness
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