Mocambo
Park Street, Calcutta
When Mocambo opened in the 1950s, it was meant to be a stylish place to eat continental food—and it remains so, cocking a snook at pretentious decor and cliched kitsch. Thus the short, russet sofas and barrel chairs, or the soft pool of light the scarlet lampshades cast on each table. Mocambo is a bastion of old Calcutta food—an inspiring mix of continental, Anglo-Indian, Mughlai and Bengali. Their signature dishes—done in the old European butter-cream-sauce-cheese style, new-fangled fusion be damned, announce this: the famous chicken a la Kiev, Fish a la Diana (“beckty stuffed with prawn, cooked in cream sauce”), Chicken Tetrazzini, Devilled Crab (“crab meat in cheese and mustard sauce”), the generous sizzlers, chelo kebabs, prawn cocktail.... Like some great...
