Oct. 12 - Food - Spanish Tapas

Watching my rupee is keeping me from dining out too often. When I do, though, I know, as a foodie, I'd love to have a micro-review to get a flavor of what Kolkata offers gastronomically. (I wish the blog could be divided by themes, or have extra pages...since it can't I'll title each foodie post with "Food")

South City Mall is the largest in Kolkata, largest in West Bengal & I think largest east of Delhi with the best part being it holds two food courts - one with fast food, one with seven full seating restaurants. Memorizing food vocabulary is a top priority so grocery shelves & menus are less of a dart board experience. The large menus posted in the fast food section provide a perfect place to sit & play "what am I" for food items from the seven regional cuisines served. (There's also a Pizza Hut, with some pretty tantalizing pictures of unique Indian veg options for specialty pizzas, & of course, the new rage - a KFC...look at the lines from today - all the other 13 vendors had no wait.



I ended up selecting "Zaras", a Spanish tapas bar. They advertised a starter, entree, dessert & choice of mocktail or pint of beer for 275 INR - $5.16 US - which seemed to fit my budget. (Little did I know they had a seven page bar menu as well, so my glass of surprisingly good Spanish sangria doubled the cost to over 600 INR total...still quite cheap for the quality & quantity of food.)

There were five vegetarian selections in each of the lunch special categories & five meat. There were also 40 various actual tapas plates to select from but the servings were quite large for tapas & I wanted to have a mixture of items. My starter was a fresh salad of beans & spicy, cumin laced dressing



My main entree was tomato based, with lots of peppers, onions, accompanied with a decent coleslaw, bread &, of course, rice. Not exactly tapas...very fresh & well seasoned, though...


I resisted the bar...though it was tempting when I heard them shaking a martini to pour into a properly iced glass.


Cocktails are beginning to take hold in normally "dry", Hindu dominated Kolkata. I watched three customers confidently sip down huge martinis made with both locally made spirits & a list of dozens of imported brands...the first page of the bar menu explains how cocktails are an art form, not to be enjoyed for the alcohol only...its the entire experience of making them & sharing over a conversation that's important....it ends with "Come embark on a journey..."




P.S. The US tradition of checking out the bathrooms is custom here, too...Zaras was sleek & very clean..."western" through & through. The restaurant decorates with mosaics everywhere...including the ladies room & seating at the hostess greeting station.

Location:Zaras, South City Mall, Jadavpur, Kolkata