Bangin' Bangladesh.

Nov 29, 2021

I am going to confess that writing this newsletter was an arduous task, but eating the food for it was not. I met up with fellow Substack writer, Ron Hogan of Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives at Boishakhi in Astoria, Queens where we sat down to have lunch. I’ve had my fair share of food from the South East Asian subcontinent, but have never really gone out to eat Bangladeshi food and am sorely disappointed in myself for not having done so.

Boishakhi is a buffet-style restaurant with a large dining room downstairs and some tables on the main floor. There is a constant rush + flow of people in and out of the restaurant that makes it hard to choose what to order. None of the food trays are labeled and I couldn’t quite ask the man behind the glass to explain every single item to me because he was busy fulfilling several orders at once so I pointed at basically everything I’ve never eaten before.

Very busy line of people. Most people take their food to go.

Delicious hot trays of food. I wish you could smell the aromas of everything.

Of course, there are similarities between Bangladeshi + Indian food (they’re neighbors) but Bangladesh is its completely own thing. I found that every bit of food I ate was spicy, nuanced, and multilayered in flavor. My usually extra sensitive tastebuds failed me in discerning the blends of spices, which made describing the foods we ate even harder for this newsletter.

No names for food: ✔

No way to describe the food in-depth: ✔

I normally write notes while I eat, but even my notes were an abomination for descriptors. Luckily I took a good chunk of photos and have labeled them so that we all can understand what I ate!

#1) I’m new to the okra game and loving it! This okra was well cooked + seasoned with zero hints of sliminess. It was very soft, but still a bit of bite to it. It was seasoned with a delicious blend of warming spices.

#2) Chicken was juicy and seemed lightly breaded. A bit of heat at the end of each bite.

#3) The beef fell off the bone and tasted like a cumin-y spiced piece of oxtail. It was exceptionally tender and I wished the server had added a couple more pieces to my container.

#4) This large piece of sausage was made with chicken, green onions, white onions, green chilies + mild spices. I actually really liked the texture of this sausage. It was kind of chunky and reminded me of a kofta kebab. It had no casing or “skin” like conventional sausages that one would find at a supermarket which made it super intriguing to see how it retained its juices.

#5) The dried fish was super spicy, a bit sweet, and jerky-like. It had a very distinctive horseradish taste + heat that lingered. Not sure if it was supposed to be a condiment to go with my food, but it was a nice break in between all the meat I was eating.

#6) Mashed green peas were a cold side dish + super spicy. They were laden with green chilies, cilantro, and red onion. The texture and mouthfeel were like a chunky green pea soup that wasn’t complete mush and still had some wholeness to it.

#7) Chicken patty tasted either exactly or very similar to the #4 sausage but just in a patty form.

#8) This huge piece of chicken also was lightly breaded but seemed even juicier than the first piece (#2). This piece was not spicy but was seasoned to perfection.

#9) I don’t eat goat often and usually will choose lamb over it, but at Boishakhi they sold me on the goat biryani. It was tenderly spiced goat surrounded by short-grain rice. Definitely turned me into a goat biryani fan.

#10) The display of rice dishes all had dyed boiled eggs on top. The egg tasted like a regular boiled egg - nothing to call home about.

#11) This potato was also a part of the rice and tasted like a regular roasted potato. Mildly seasoned.

#12) The Long grain rice under everything was beautifully fragrant + tasted a bit like rose water, which was surprising.

Hopefully, everyone was able to follow these notes!

Boishakhi was an awesome introduction to Bengali cuisine. It has all the flavor + depth that its cousin India does. The most important takeaway I found through this meal was the confirmation of identity. There will be many cuisines that seem similar or identical in this Eating A-Z in NYC series, but what sets them all apart is how their unique identity shows up on the plate. I have eaten Indian a thousand times and can understand the similarity between it and Bengali food, but I can also appreciate two neighboring countries who both have an affinity for well-spiced foods + their preparation.

Friday’s Paid Newsletter: Episode 2 of the Burnt podcast with Nico Vera of The Vegan Peruvian Kitchen substack newsletter! We talk about vegan Peruvian food, things going awry while teaching a cooking class, and giving yourself permission to improvise while cooking.