It's not often that I get to step into a Bangladeshi restaurant and speak in Bangla with everyone. The owner was playing carrom with someone in one corner when I got there. It was too late for lunch but early for dinner. His wife took me to the remnants of what had been the lunch buffet. It was slim pickings and most notably none of the mishti was freshly made. Everything on display looked old and tired, cooked without love. As much I wanted to connect to my roots, have a conversation in my own language and feed my soul with food of my ancestors, I was not able to get into the state of mind. Experiences do not need to be perfect but there cannot be so many flaws that it loses its structural integrity and keels over.
We left the place more than a little disappointed and went to a generic Indian restaurant next door. The food was nothing to write home about. The chai was decent. The owner told me that everything was made from scratch and nothing was mass produced. I found that particularly amusing in light of the fact that their Manchurian Momo which they insisted I try was made from frozen Costco dumplings fried and dunked in pre-made Gobi Manchurian sauce. They had not even made an effort to hide the provenance of the dumplings.
But I went along with the fairy tale which I hear at Indian restaurants all the time - it is a time-honored tactic to explain the excruciatingly slow service and sometimes amateur cooking. It is so predictable that I have used it as a parlor trick with non-desi friends in Indian restaurants. I will have them ask why our order is taking so long and tell them what they will hear for an answer. They have been come back bedazzled by my prescience - its like I am a mind-reader.
I thought about my abortive attempt to get authentic Bengali food at the Bangladeshi establishment on the flight back home. I missed my grandmother's cooking that afternoon as I do sometimes and it was why I stood there trying to see if anything they had there was worth trying - something that would feed that void. It made sense that nothing made the cut. These were dishes my grandma cooked and of course no one else can ever match their sublime perfection - there is no objectivity to how I feel about her cooking. Maybe the fault was mine and not theirs.
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