D’Bapi Barrackpore- biryani, love story and more…

Some people say it’s pure love, some say it’s the purest form of lust. No, please don’t get me wrong- I am talking about biryani here and not anything else. And, like all lovely (and sexy) things in life, confusion reigns here for the best one. I won’t go into the debate here as I’ve been involved over a lot earlier and the same can be found on my blog. But, once mohamushkil reached Barrackpore in search of some Barrackpore biryani, things took a different turn. I found a soft mushy love story along with some kick-ass biryani. this time, I’d like to talk about D’Bapi Biryani.

Location

Calcutta outskirts – a place called Barrackpore. Its around 1 hours drive from Calcutta, but considering the road and driving condition, its always advisable to catch a train from Sealdah and reach there. Step out of the station and you can find the famous  Dada Boudir Hotel just outside the station. It has got his fair share of fame for its huge portion size of Biryani rice and equally huge portion of meat and potato (yes, potato is an integral part of Calcutta Biryani- period).

But, we were hell bent on going to D Bapi Biryani. The local people assured that this one is the upcoming star in the Biryani scenaio in Barrackpore. Its little far from station and situated at the crossing of Kalyani highway and Barrackpore main road towards Nilgunj.

The location can be found on google map here…

Now, who would’ve known that a regular biryani huntage will lead us to a love story here ? But, first things first. Biryani first and then the love story….

Please, please, please do not expect any fancy outlet or seating arrangement here. but what you can expect is some honest value-for-money biryani with huge pieces (i don’t know frankly how they manage the pricing in that) and freshly prepared stuff. The local people, as I was told, prefer this one nowadays over the famed one…. And they were right in their selection. The biryani is slightly spicy and moist in nature (or gila cut is the standard feature here) but that adds to the taste, at least in this case.  Its prepared just in the adjacent area of the outlet and dust from the road probably enhanced its taste IMO. What I could find out, the shop sells around 1500-1800 plates of biryani on weekdays and naturally the count shoots up on weekends.

That mutton liver curry

Apart from the biryani, please please go for their mutton liver. Let me tell you or rather let me confirm that this is one hell of a dish. In just 100/-, you can find 6-8 big chunks of mutton liver with some spicy, green chilly flavored kassa. I’d suggest to parcel it (as you’re, in all probabilities already full), take it home (family time ??? ), dry it in a kadhai and bingo- you have your evening chakhna done for old monk. And, if you’re a domestic animal like me, wiping the gravy with some phulka is bound to give some primal pleasure.

The story behind

Now, we’ve got a bad habit of talking utter nonsense to the owners/ managers of the places wherever we go to gobble. And for some strange reason, they also talk their heart out. And, here, we heard the love story of the owner. I was under the impression that the name D’Bapi was for some shitty french connection, but women can sense love and my friend was no exception.

Upon grilling, what came out was “D” stood for her wife (I mean seriously ??? ) and with this, the serious looking Mr Bapi Das was magically converted (at least for a few minutes) to the teenager he used to be during his pre-marriage era. “You can guess dada, we’ve had a lot of trouble while setting up the shop and my wife had supported me a lot, without her, I couldn’t have done this” And, suddenly a phone call (later we learned, it was a call for a pretty big biryani supply order) cut our conversation short and we also had to leave. But from whatever we’ve heard, it seemed, he had started the shop with inspiration from his lady love and even in today’s world, love worked wonders- so did he. The once-tiny-shop now is giving strong competition to the high and mighty locally and is doing really good.

Frankly, the storyline bowled us out. In this so called male-chauvinist world (I am a proud MCP BTW), this kind of mushy mushy love story still prevails. Frankly, I know I’ve failed to describe the emotion I’ve seen in the man’s eyes while describing this, but maybe someday on some other meeting with him, I’d be able to hear the whole story……..

My experience at Dada Boudi Biryani

*** few pics here are taken by Debjani ***

Bon apetit !!!

I can be reached at 9903528225 / indrajit.lahiri@ymail.com