The Tangra Project X The Salt House: A Review

Chef Vikramjit Roy is a charming man. A charming man who has really great skills as a showman, excellent communication skills, a wonderful personality, and a great sense of food.

What he also probably has is perhaps a touch of delusion about the city.

Or, at the very least, I believe he seems to confuse this city for quite a few others.

Or perhaps that is what The Tangra Project tried to do in the Kolkata Popup. In association with The Salt House, an establishment I like for its sense of style, and feel sympathy towards, because they probably don’t deserve this. However, the reason why I, dear readers, am writing this, is probably because I am feeling slightly humiliated.

You see, I have heard of Chef Vikramjit Roy. Wonderful things. I expected them all to be true when I met him. And while I believe his food is in the right place, I believe the way he has approached the Tangra Project’s menu is something that has been done with his heart being in the right place, but his memory clearly not, since I fail to understand why in the menu there would be a Classic Darjeeling Egg Chicken Momo, which, thankfully, wasn’t served to us, because had it been the case, more than one of my dining companions this afternoon would be upset.

I digress. This afternoon wasn’t all that bad. For one, my company was excellent. I shall, as usual, if you remember dear readers, not reveal the names, but it is definitely going to be easy for you to figure it out if you check out my Instagram at @panushwari. Self-plug aside, let me continue with this afternoon.

What will my happiness be like?

As I entered the specially curated media table, I could see familiar faces in my fraternity. Faces that once would insist on first looks over media tables now were all smiles, while bubbles made the round. Sweet and dangerously addictive, they made me anticipate a meal worth remembering. And the tasting plate, consisted of slices of Kalimpong Cheese, fresh Bandel Cheese (which was rather salty – indicating that the cheese hadn’t been soaked in water before serving), pressed papaya marinated with white wine – “I like adding wine to things while fermenting”, he laughed when asked about it – delightfully tart and sweet and a few other titbits. I picked up a slice of titora¸ laughing at D’s puckered up face, the spicy sourness exploding on her tongue as soon as she bit into it.

The ‘Chips and Dip’ came next. A rather gloriously smoky, tart, baba ganoush-like dip, served with sweet potato and banana chips, served with a fresh pico de gallo on top, to ‘compensate for the guac. You’ll never guess what it’s made of’, Chef grinned wickedly.

“Aubergine?”, I ventured timidly, believing them to be the pea aubergines of Thailand.   

“Parwal!” He laughed.

The wonder of this discovery and his laughter made me happy.

Hope, that foul, deceitful thing

Dear readers, if you’ve come this far, you would understand that I am trying to make a space in my head for this food. It comes from two places – one, the potential, and two, the fall. It’s like TS Eliot’s The Hollow Man, “Between the desire And the spasm, Falls the Shadow.” What we next encountered was something between these things, but let me just say, it looked very pretty.

And that’s the thing – it all looks very pretty, just like it should. Only, when I am tasting them, I find the rather needless use of ingredients that should have never been. For example, the assortment of fish pieces in a reimagined leche de tigre was a limp, bland, thin coconutty concoction, with drops of chilli and possibly cilantro oil drizzled on top. The quality of the tuna – excellent. Everything else – meh. The interpretation seemed to focus on the ‘leche’, or milk aspect of the concoction the fishes seemed to float in – however, the chef might have forgotten that tiger’s milk is supposed to put hair on your chest. It needs to have that pungency, the strength to make the fish stand out, and here there was SO MUCH SCOPE to make this into something super intriguing that both K and I looked at each other’s faces with identical, resigned expressions.

The lamb brain ghugni floated in, with a pile of pulses and a tiny lamb brain chop in the centre. If I was ordering, I would have asked for more of those brain chops and not want much more, I thought. The brain chops were, indeed, exquisite, and paired rather nicely with the spicy, sweet ghugni. Made me think of Mitra Café on my way back from college, where we would spend many a time eating brain chops for 10 rupees. Oh well, we then moved to another nice little thing – a queso dip made with pasted sesame, poppy seeds and spinach – quite delicious, quite delicate.

The Prawn Paturi (in my case Chhana) came with a rather generous serving of prawns/cottage cheese smothered with sharp mustard before getting cooked wrapped in banana leaves. Very tasty, especially with the sweet chutney it came with. A nice, perfectly executed recipe that’s definitely another point on the chef’s side.

But then came the “Chaplin-er Halim”, wherein begun the discomfort I started feeling. A sense of uneasiness as I bit into a piece of crusty bread with a khichra-like, unctuous Haleem spread on top. When asked, the Chef had previously responded (if I am not mistaken, in a post on social media) that this was his version of the Haleem sold on the areas around Chaplin. I am assuming he means Chaplin Cinema Hall, the oldest single-screen cinema hall of that time. Given the location of the space, there are quite a few places making Haleem nearby, as well as streetside vendors. It is really plausible that the Chef is referring to this.

However, the Haleem itself was my bone of contention here, for it was, in no way, a Kolkata Haleem. The flavour profile and texture were all wrong – instead, it was a Hyderabad-style Haleem, which tastes completely different. Now, readers, bear with me here, the reason I am upset is about something called creating a cultural confusion. If, today, someone tries to find that Haleem around Chaplin, they would never do. And that, dear reader, is why I believe Chef Vikramjit is creating a culinary confusion that doesn’t seem appropriate, both for Kolkata and Hyderabad.

Myriad dishes came and went. Tasty, but they were unable to raise me from my significant epicurean melancholia, dear readers. The chholar dal with edamame was sweet and a bit too much of garam masala for my taste, the dumplings tasted nice and pleasant, but that’s all there was to it.

The Punjabi Kadi Risotto with Golbarir Mangsho, a rather impressive looking dish, that made me, rather helplessly, think of a nicely made Osso Buco on top of Saffron Risotto. But well, looks are deceptive. The mutton, albeit tender, didn’t really need all the sugar, and the kadi risotto didn’t have enough seasoning to offset the sweetness. I ended up eating a couple of spoons more before giving up, hiding behind D to avoid my discomfort while R made a face and put down his fork, admitting defeat.

The desserts, next. We demolished a rose over what seemed to be a panna cotta, wobbly, cold and sweet, when presented with a dessert called The Rose. Not my favourite texture, but its good to beat roses around bushes, sorry, plate. The Dodhikorma Cheesecake, another Bengali recipe that I wish shouldn’t have been made in the first place, was reimagined with chire granola on top. I am not sure why, but the combination of cold and sticky and crunchy and lightly sweetened was not exactly what I would eat again, but to each his own. This was rather well-received in the table, otherwise. We finished with a gently smoking plate of a chocolate, paan and ice cream concoction, which was, in one word, underwhelming. Deeply in discomfort, I decided to write tonight.

The Tangra Project claims to be a Delhi-based brand that tries to explore a ‘forgotten culture’. First off, a culture has to be old enough to be forgotten. The Tangra region, a space that this place borrows its name from, has a history that has many, many lives affected. Tangra was a space that grew out of desperation. Its history is a murky, sad, one, and to create a brand around this name, but adding elements that are not just not from Tangra, but not from Kolkata, is, perhaps, my problem with Chef Roy, and I believe that it emerges from a culture that tries to provide an experience in the comfort of your city instead of ‘slumming it’, I guess. But here’s the thing. Tangra is just a bus away, and its never forgotten. And it has a very distinct set of flavour profiles that are quite intrinsic to its nature, which, when violated in my head, creates a deep sense of discomfort.

The discomfort I felt today.

** This meal was sponsored by The Salt House. My opinions are based on my personal judgment and experience, and are unbiased.