I met a young lady called Mary at a northeastern food festival in the Capital around this time last year. It was quite a festive gathering – with good music, good food and a great ambience. And I recall that Mary’s food was excellent. I also remember that she told me then that they had a restaurant in Safdarjung Enclave, but were planning to start something new.
Well, I am happy to say that Rosang Café near Uphaar Cinema in Green Park (S-20, Green Park Extension Market, phone: 011-33106210) is doing rather well. I went there some days ago for dinner and found the place bustling. It’s a small restaurant (with about 20 covers) but every table was full when we went there. And you can understand why when you have the food at Rosang – it’s simply delicious.
The menu is a very nice mix of food from the Northeast – offering some of the much loved dishes from every state. So you can have the nghui ngosing of Arunachal Pradesh (a minced fish preparation for Rs.349) or Mizoram’s bawngsa kan (meat fry for Rs.349) and Nagaland’s nuoshi (pork with dry yam stem for Rs.319). You can try out Sikkim’s kukhura ko masu (a tangy chicken dish for Rs.319) or momos for Rs.179), Manipur’s maang gan ooti (greens with yellow peas for Rs.219), Meghalaya’s dohneiihong (pork cooked in black sesame for Rs.319), or Assam’s bilahi masor tenga (fish curry for Rs.299). Then of course you can have spare ribs that cut across regions (Rs.349).
The Arunachali minced fish, burnt in a banana leaf with spices, was truly excellent – the fish had taken in all the light flavours and was tender and moist. We then had the spare ribs, which were very, very big and very, very juicy (though crunchy from the outside).
The four of us at the table were all great pork fiends, so we asked for the Meghalaya dish of pork cooked with sesame paste. This, again, was wonderfully tasty – the pork was nice and fatty, and the sauce, thick and strong, went really well with the extra joha rice (Rs.149) that we had asked for.
Since I am a great supporter of Tripura and its quiet, unassuming chief minister, we had the State’s tokhan – chicken curry cooked with sour tomatoes (Rs.319). The chicken was lightly spiced, and the gravy was delicious. So was the Manipuri dish of greens with yellow peas. It was like a thick, vegetable-laden dal, and nicely complemented the meaty meal. To go with all this we had asked for some wild red rice tea, with lemon slices and jaggery on the side (Rs.79). We ended the meal with some chaak hao kheer (Rs.149), which was okay as kheers go.
It truly was an excellent meal. Mary wasn’t there that day, but the servers were all very friendly and most helpful, offering suggestions on what we should eat. My Northeast sojourn – very satisfying, so far — continues. One of these days I am going to try the food out at Naga Kitchen, and then tell you all about it. The Seven Sisters and their eighth sibling are full of epicurean treasures that are still to be tasted.
Rahul Verma is a seasoned street food connoisseur
