Old Dhaka Food Tour, pt. 2

“Can you find Bengali food in the U.S.? Sure. Around 250,000 Bengalis live in the U.S.

That said… most of them are in New York City. And tracking down a Bengali restaurant isn’t always that easy to do.

Unfortunately, there’s a long history of western countries doing a disservice to the variety and regionality of South Asian food. Taking a whole category of foods and calling them all curry. Or leaving us largely illiterate when it comes to the regional identities of certain dishes.

A lot of Bengali restaurants might be labeled as Indian food. Not wrong, exactly, since Bengal is in India AND Bangladesh, but you really don’t know if you’re getting Bengali food or Punjabi food or Goan food etc. when all the sign says is Indian.

But, my favorite workaround is this. Get to know the people running the place. That typically only leads to good things.”