PanchPhoron meet over mango & other sweets @ Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Nandy

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Are you a Bengali? Are you someone who resides in Kolkata? Even if your answer to the previous two questions is a no, yet you have a sweet tooth for bangali mishti then surely you have heard of this sweet shop. Forget even that. If you are a regular zomato user surely you know by now that this is the highest rated outlet in the city which shares the honour with barbeque nation. Not only Zomato, even TripAdvisor ranks this as the #1 place among 3723 places to eat in Kolkata. So what does this simple sweet shop has to offer so as to receive such a praise among the foodie community? To find out let's take a walk down the history of this shop.

More than a hundred years back Girish Chandra Dey of Simla (not to be confused with Shimla) started selling sweetmeats from this small shop. He was already making names in the industry when he was joined by Nakur Chandra Nandy from Janai, Hooghly. Subsequently Nakur Nandy married Girish Dey's daughter. However more than the marital relation, the father-in-law & son-in-law's joint business venture became the talk of the town. Their firm specialised in karapak sandesh (hard baked sandesh), however with time they have applied innovations & experiments to their products & garnered more appreciations. Not only Kolkata , their fame has spread across Bengal & even to the national level. Their patrons include some of the most well known personalities of India, like Satyajit Ray, Uttam Kumar, Rajib Gandhi. Not only a favourite among historical figures, recently the shop supplied chocolate, parijat & mousumi sandesh for wedding reception of Abhishek Bachhan & Aishwarya Tai. Kanchagolla & parijat sandesh have been gifted to US Foreign Secretary, Mrs. Hillary Clinton. The present prime minister of India, Mr. Modi is believed to be a fan of their sandesh too.

Locating the shop isn't tough. Locate Hedua Park, ask anybody, & they'll be more than happy to direct you to the shop, popularly to referred as 'Nokur'. Don't let the outside facade fool you. The shop may look old & shabby from outside, but even then the fantastic array of varieties of sweetmeats on display will surely impress you. The five generation family business is presently owned & managed by Mr. Pratip & Pranab Nandy, latter of the duo can be found at the shop throughout the day.

Although specialising in karapak sandesh, the shop offers more than sixty items of sandesh including their specialities like Talsash, jalbhara, parijat, dilkhush, monohora & others. They boast of their product quality & rightly so as none of their products remain unsold at the end of the day. All the items are prepared afresh each day. The naram Pak sandesh has a shelf life of around a day or two, karapak upto a week, however it is adviceable to consume them at the earliest so that the intended flavour can be fully appreciated.

Recently PanchPhoron was invited over to try out some of their special mango sweets. It was a great opportunity to visit the shop, see the items in making, & have them as fresh as one could ever have. We tried the following sweets, & here's my short review of those:

Mango Monohora:

Monohora or monohora literally means 'one that steals the heart'. Such is the beauty of this sweet that the name is apt. Traditionally from Janai, this must've been brought to & popularised in Kolkata by Mr. Nakur Nandy. Now the original Monohora is already famous by itself, the newest addition being the use of mango to make it. Like the original, the mango variant too has a hard outer shell made from extra sugar, a bit too sweet for me though. Inside that shell hides the soft mango sandesh. Overall the induction of mango surely made things better.

Mango Amropali:

These are square shaped mango flavoured sandesh. Two layers of sandesh with a layer of shredded aamsatwo & bits of almonds sandwiched in between. As you bite into the sandesh the outside softness & inner crunchy almonds present to you unique texture, not to mention the mango flavour which just elevates the whole experience to another level.

Mango Mousumi:

This is similar to the previous one, only a bit smaller in size , cashews replacing the almonds, & mango pulp replacing the aamsatwo. This is undeniably a bit softer than the previous one due to the presence of pulp. Tastewise there's subtle difference, the woody flavour of almonds replaced by the cashews, but overall the sweet is as good as the previous one, if not better.

Mango Jolbhora:

The common Jolbhora gets a makeover, with mango syrup replacing the usual sugar/jaggery syrup. As mangoes are one of my weaknesses, this again impressed me as soon as I took a bite. Additional fun was seeing the item being prepared in front of our own eyes, right from putting the sandesh in the moulds, putting the syrup & then sealing the hole.

Mango Singara:

Not the usual fried snack with mashed potato filling, not the masala filling, not even the one with sujir filling. This one was mindblowingly made. A thin layer of sandesh modelled after the usual pyramidal Singara shape, hiding a filling of mango sandesh inside, & mango syrup lightly drizzled on top. Both the outer layer & the inner were soft, sweetness optimum making it the best sweet I tried that day.

Mango Sandesh:

This was regular sandesh prepared with mango syrup. Fresh & soft these too tasted superb.

Daab sandesh:

Sandesh made with grated coconut pulp. However the selection of the coconut is given importance. Not too tender, not too ripe, a medium aged coconut is procured for this one so as to make this irresistible piece of sandesh all the more mouth watering.

Chocolate roll:

Looking a bit like the chocolate roll you get to see in confectionery outlets. However in place of chocolate flavoured breads, alternate thin layer of chocolate sandesh & regular sandesh is used to wrap a inner core of, you guessed it right, more of chocolate sandesh. This one was another item I really liked. The fusion of chocolate & sandesh optimum, none overpowering the other. Surely will revisit for this item.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this visit. It was evident from the taste of the items, why they are considered the best sweet makers of Kolkata. If its sandesh, 'Nokur' does it best. & Not only the original variant, they make the fusion sandesh as good as their unadulterated ones. For the syrup they use Alphonso mango syrup procured from Gujarat itself. Other ingredients are sourced locally & then goes through various age old techniques to finally produce the awesome sweets that people of Kolkata practically swear by. The methods may seem primitive, nothing is automated, rather relying on the skills of the craftsmen. Maybe that's the secret behind the great taste (or maybe they add some secret ingredients :D) . In any case the shop continues to uphold their name & fame, & keep doing so for generations to come. It was a privilege to be invited for this event & see the sweets in the making. Will surely go back for more.

Until then

Happy Eating

Cheers!