Eggheads - one world...

A Chinese egghead from Canada connects with an Indian egghead in Texas, about building a tandoor. Turns out that they're both from Kolkata in India. The Indian guy tells the Chinese guy that he's going to India for a few weeks, so the Chinese guy tells him to give his brother a call. And that's how things got rolling.

I called @canugghead's brother when I reached Kolkata and we decided to meet for lunch on  Sunday. Canugghead's brother runs a sauce factory in Tangra (Kolkata's Chinatown, and the only Chinatown in India that I know of), so the plan was to tour the factory and then go eat some authentic Hakka Chinese grub. It was cool to see how soy sauce is made the old school way - soy beans are fermented in the sun, brined, and the soy sauce is then siphoned off and bottled. They make a variety of other sauces as well, which we were given several bottles of to take home! We also drove through the lanes of Tangra a bit, with Canuggehad's brother acting as our tour guide. The area used to be busy and bustling, but is now sadly a ghost of its former self.

Lunch was a real treat! Hakka Chinese have lived in Calcutta for 200+years, and so Chinese food in India is fabulous. We were taken to a small (7 tables total I think) restaurant called Lee's, which we would have never been able to find by ourselves. Lee converted part of his house into the restaurant, and he cooks himself. We ate all kinds of deliciousness - handmade noodles, dumpling's, steamed fish with a ginger soy sauce, chili chicken (a Chinese food staple in India), shrimp, red sauce noodles (never had these before), and shan tong cooked two ways (one with a preserved lemon sauce and the other with a rice wine sauce). The shan tong was a special treat since it hard to procure, but apparently Lee "knows a guy". I can't describe what cut of beef it is exactly, but Canugghead's cousin described it as the neck muscle (I think). As soon as the cut is separated from the carcass, it is beaten to tighten it up. The meat looks white like pork, but is quite tender... and tasty. I could barely walk back to the car after we were done, because canugghead's brother  ordered about a dozen items for us to try. We were stuffed!

Canugghead's sister-in-law sent us home with all kinds of treats - several bottles of different sauces from their factory, shrimp crackers, and dry-cured Chinese sausage. This outing was a highlight of our trip to Kolkata, and I couldn't help but muse over how it all came together. Good times.

I have a picture of all of us at the restaurant, but I first need to ask canugghead if he's ok with me posting pics of his family. No pics of the food since I didn't want to look like a geek, and I was probably amusing everybody enough by insisting on eating with chopsticks