Kushboo Sweets and Restaurant ~ Bangladeshi - Lakemba

Lakemba closes off streets and slings on its finest threads for Bengali New Year in April. We tagged along by accident and ended up eating a traditional new year meal at Kushboo Sweets and Restaurant.

Bengali New Year falls on 14 April in Bangladesh (yes, yes, it's taken us some time to finish this post!). We headed into the street fair in Lakemba by accident, we had intended on a leisurely lunch and a stroll along the Cooks River but ended up celebrating. Not such a bad thing.

While there were street stalls selling snacks, we headed into Khushboo Sweets and Restaurant. There were large groups inside, it was cool and we were hungry. Plus, sweets.

On this holiday the restaurant was only serving a set meal (we will have to return for further exploring). You could choose one of the deals each, so we were happy to select a couple of different meals.

First up is the Bhoona Kichuri Deal: bhoona kichuri is a pilaf style rice, served with a duck curry, an omelette, a slice of fried eggplant and two vorta. Vorta or bhorta are a cross between a spicy sambal and mashed veggies, they are served along with rice and you mix and eat together.

We also ordered the traditional Bengali new year dish, panta bhat. This was a very plain, basic rice gruel made by soaking cooked (usually left over) rice overnight, that we at first thought was super bland, but you eat this with spiced sides and salt to balance the flavour.

Along side our Dickensian gruel was a slice of ilish fry, or sliced fish.

Three different vorta to eat and adjust your spice kick with. These ranged from a potato, to eggplant to spicy fish. Each one had a complexity and pungency of its own.

Dessert option was limited to this rice pudding cooked with cardamon and dried fruit. We love anything with cardamon. We could have eaten all of these.

Sweet options at the counter to tempt you on the way out.

Loads of ready made curries as well.

Khushboo Sweets and Restaurant is at 38 Railway Parade, Lakemba.