Kolapata

Whitechapel has long had little caffs serving a few home-style Bangladeshi dishes, but Kolapata is the area’s first proper ambassador for the country’s authentic cuisine. True, simple things are on the menu, but so are the complex dishes you might find in top restaurants in Dhaka. Lamb biriani is a Muslim classic, perfectly rendered with chunks of bone still in the dish; haleem is lamb and crushed wheat cooked with lentils and spices into a texture resembling thick lentil soup, but with much more intensity of flavour. More distinctively Bangladeshi are the fish dishes. Rupchanda (what we call pomfret) is served whole in a tangy curry sauce. We were particularly impressed by the bhortas: mixed vegetable dishes, pungent with mustard oil. Make sure you try the aloo chop, a perfectly cooked starter of potato cutlet filled with delicate shreds of beef; like all the cooking here, you wonder how the restaurant does it for such a low price. Booze isn’t sold – Kolapata, for all its fine cooking and bright paint, still looks very much like a wipe-clean caff – but the yoghurt-based wedding drink called borhani is a good foil for the spice heat of the food. NB Since this original review appeared in the Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008, revisits by our critics have shown that standards can be highly variable.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008

Services:

Booking: Booking advisable
Child facilities: Babies and children welcome: high chairs
Takeaway service: Takeaway service

See other: