Calcutta on Devon?

I have a job candidate coming into town.

She is from Calcutta (attending college in rural Michigan, poor gal). It would be great to take her to a Devon restaurant for Bengali food. Only, I don't know Bengali food at all.

Where should we go?

AFAIK there isn't any 'Bengali' restaurant on Devon anymore (Sonargaon closed).
There is the more recent, Radhuni which is not on Devon (and I haven't been to). Note also that although Radhuni is operated by Bangladeshi proprietors, the food isn't Bengali as such - more Moghlai oriented. Perhaps a call ahead may result in items not otherwise on the menu.

Actually, she would probably be very satisfied with restaurants on Devon - Khan BBQ (if she's Bengali, she's not vegetarian, so Khan's won't be a problem). I'm not sure about ambience given that she's a job candidate - but the post-fire Khan's should be okay. Hopefully others will chime in on this aspect.

Also on Oakley just north of Devon, there's a Bengali 'fish' (frozen) and grocery store. In a refrigerator case they carry at times 'misti doi' ('sweet yogurt', a traditional Bengali dessert/sweet) that's flavored with (date)palm jaggery. I would actually not recommend it, unless she has a deep hankering for something specifically Bengali and the other Indian items on Devon don't particularly satisfy (which I doubt, given your statement about rural MI). The misti doi at it's freshest there (from NY) is a poor example (though arguably nearly as good as may be found in many places In India but outside Bengal that may have it).
For dessert I would suggest Ambala - they carry rossogollas (another famous Bengali sweet) - and when I visited them last, towards the end of Summer last year they were sold by the piece/weight (as opposed to boxes from the refrigerator). These are actually good examples of rossogollas - IMO better than what may be found in many places In India outside Bengal (and some bad ones in Bengal). The jalebis, if fresh, are also good.

Speaking of jalebis - show her this Jalebis in Calcutta (youtube link) (something I managed to get done some time back but didn't have till now an opportune moment to post...)

Brian, welcome to LTHForum! I hope you'll post on where you end up and how the food was.

for the first time today I noticed a little bangladeshi seafood market on bell, just north of devon (around the corner from chopal) named sunderban's fish market.

anyway, they advertised ros gollah, ras malai, and mishti doi. I'm curious if anyone has tried these bengali desserts from the store?

Just taking the opportunity to muse about the day when a panoply of regional Indian cuisines are readily available in Chicago, the way regional Chinese has come on over the last generation or so. Not that I'm complaining, I love the choices available now, but how wonderful it would be to have Bengali cuisine, Gujarati cuisine, and others in addition to what we have now. In the meantime, I will have to finagle more invites to our Bengali fomer babysitter's house.

zim wrote:for the first time today I noticed a little bangladeshi seafood market on bell, just north of devon (around the corner from chopal) named sunderban's fish market.

anyway, they advertised ros gollah, ras malai, and mishti doi. I'm curious if anyone has tried these bengali desserts from the store?

Zim, the name definitely rings a bell - it may be the one I mention in my previous post. I couldn't remember the name at that time and vaguely recalled it was on the street just round the corner from the now-defunct Sonargaon - so I mentioned Oakley. It may have been on Bell which is the next street. Or perhaps it's another store... Anyhow, is Sunderbans the store with the banks of chest freezers along the walls (more than other items)? Then that's the one. And if so, my comments on the misti-doi are above.
(I didn't care for it, though my (Bengali) friend mentioned it wasn't worse than what he had gotten in Bangalore - a S. Indian city far from Bengal)
If this is a different store - it's likely they have the same NY supplier. Sonargaon used to get the misti-doi and rossogolla from the same supplier as the fish-store (whichever one I wandered into) - at least according to the fish-store owner [this was at the time Sonargaon was just about to shutter for good]

Zim, if you try some (at least the rossogolla), let me know what you think.

sazerac wrote:
Zim, the name definitely rings a bell - it may be the one I mention in my previous post. I couldn't remember the name at that time and vaguely recalled it was on the street just round the corner from the now-defunct Sonargaon - so I mentioned Oakley. It may have been on Bell which is the next street. Or perhaps it's another store... Anyhow, is Sunderbans the store with the banks of chest freezers along the walls (more than other items)? Then that's the one. And if so, my comments on the misti-doi are above.

saz, its gotta be the same store (though all the fish stores around there have fit the chest freezer description.) Didn't get a chance to try the items last time, but will next time i'm in the area. Bangalore level product wouldn't be so bad in my eyes.