So this time the New York Times scooped me. A couple of months ago we went with our friends Suky, Loes, Maxi, and Pierre to Calcutta. We were looking for a place to eat and went past this restaurant. The outside of the place looked like a throw back to the 1950's (America). Look at the menu. If I am not mistaken, those are either two Flamenco dancers, or maybe south American. Also there is a cactus on the upper left hand side. The food was not remotely Spanish. It was kind of insanely discordant given that this was Calcutta, if you know what I mean. Anyway, there was a guy who was weirdly dressed and had a strange accent (but speaking perfect English) that we could not make out smoking a cigarette in front of the joint. He said he went there all the time and that it was great. If this seems kind of Twilight Zonish to you, imagine being there at the time. It was weirder. We went in to check it out and the interior and menu were something out of a midwestern (US) supper club. It was insane. So we all decided to give it a shot. The food was fantastic and again, I have not seen these dishes on any restaurant in the US in twenty years. I wanted to know more about the place because it was it was so bizarre and it was the only place like it we have seen in all of India, bar none. I googled it and sure enough, The New York Times journalist Somini Sengupta was there back in August and wrote a great article about it. You may remember Ms Sengupta's name from her coverage of the Mumbai attacks in November. Her articles were front and center in the New York Times for quite while. Oh well, if you are going to be scooped, it may as well be from a New York Times front page journalist.
Link to the New York Times article:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/travel/31bites.html?scp=1&sq=mocambo&st=cse
2 comments:
Speaking of being scooped.
Did you google Mocambo like a good journalist would?
Mocambo Wikipedia
Joe:
You sent me on a nostalgia trip..I grew up in Calcutta and it was in Mocambo that i had the first Amercian (!) chicken steak in my life :). My dad used to tell me that this was his favorite "hangout joint" in the 1960s, they had live music and you had to wear a jacket and tie to enter the resturant. I have not been to Mocambo for almost 15 years now, but next time I am in calcutta ..it will be my first stop. Thanks for reminding me about the place.
Ramen
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