New and approved is The Spinoff’s series highlighting fresh hospo offerings. This week, Charlotte Muru-Lanning recommends Parbon Tasty Kitchen, a Mt Albert spot showcasing a frankly astonishing range of Bengali dishes.
What is it?
A self-described Bengali and Indo-Chinese restaurant in Mt Albert. The real drawcard is the Bengali portion of the menu. The cuisine of Bengal spans most of present-day Bangladesh and parts of eastern India, and is defined by its idiosyncratic use of mustard oil, rice, fish (meaning it’s an especially hospitable cuisine for pescatarians) and its repertoire of sweets.
You can visit them any day of the week, at lunch or dinnertime to sample their array of curries, biryanis, snacks and sweets rarely found elsewhere in Tāmaki Makaurau’s restaurants. While you could very happily dine solo here, the pleasure lies in sampling widely so come with a group if you can. On the weekends, you can pop in from 8am for Bengali breakfasts too.
Where is it?
Directly opposite Mt Albert Train Station, flanked by Mr Katsu and Mt Albert BBQ Noodle House (the one on the right-hand side, not Momo Tea).
As a Mt Albert resident, I say this with affection: one of the suburb’s charms is that it has very few restaurants I’d visit if I lived in another suburb. Parbon Tasty Kitchen is unique in that it is a place worth crossing suburban lines for.
What’s new about it?
Parbon, the Bengali word for feast or celebration, opened in January, so it’s not exactly “new” in the strictest sense of the word. What is new, however, is that it has barely been talked about, both in our shrinking food media-scape, but also on the algorithm.
I’d also wager most Aucklanders will have never eaten Bengali food before. It remains remarkably rare in Auckland (Parbon being one of only three restaurants in this city dedicated to it – all of which have opened within the last year or so), meaning that for many diners, this menu will be an introduction to an entirely unfamiliar culinary tradition.
And while Bengali cuisine shares a good amount of common ground with other South Asian cuisines, it has a distinctive character all its own. Eating here, and tasting its layered, unfamiliar and highly delicious flavours and textures, sent me down a vast online rabbithole into the cuisine’s history in an effort to understand how these culinary combinations came to be. The answer is complex (as the eating experience suggests): shaped, in part, by the region’s climate and geography, but also by Muslim rule in the 14th century, the partition of Bengal and, perhaps most intriguingly, the austere cooking traditions that arose from the restricted diets of Bengali Hindu widows. Everything you eat at Parbon reveals something of that history, which is a real thrill.
Who’s behind it?
Assembling Parbon’s brilliantly punchy snacks, perfect curries and profusion of sweets in the kitchen is chef Subarna Saha, who spent seven years at Blue Breeze Inn and Chop Chop in Ponsonby before opening Parbon. She moved to Tāmaki Makaurau 10 years ago from Dhaka with her husband Utpal Prodhan. He still works a full-time day job, but most evenings you’ll find him running food and taking orders alongside their two children. It is, in every sense, a family operation.
What are the vibes?
Unfussy, clean and brightly lit. Remnants of the Chinese restaurant that occupied the space before (also called Tasty Kitchen) remain by way of the jazzy silver wall, and the vessels of vinegar, soy sauce and chilli oil on the tables. The single room seats around 20, furnished with a mismatched assortment of tables and chairs. It is bare bones, but it doesn’t really matter because you’re here for the food.
What should I order?
The menu showcases a frankly astonishing range of Bengali dishes. At bare minimum order one snack, one main and one dessert per person, plus rice or a few of the puffy luchi breads as a vehicle to soak up every last bit of sauce.
Of the snacks, you should try the fushka – ping pong ball-sized crisp puri shells crammed with all sorts of pungent, textural bits and designed to be eaten in one swift bite. For the indecisive, there’s beguni, which are deep fried slices of eggplant that both myself and the children at the table next to us seemed equally thrilled by. And then there’s the jhal muri. I’m not sure there’s a single dish in the city I love eating more at the moment than this: a bowl of puffed rice, spices, vegetables, Bombay mix and mustard oil that is eaten with a spoon, just as you would a bowl of cereal. It is a compelling argument for slight sogginess, lukewarm temperature and bitterness.
The mains span rice dishes and curries, but the smaller curry portions are the way to go, allowing you to sample as much as possible. There are mutton and goat iterations, a decent vegetarian section and an especially generous list of fish options. The eggplant posto is an impossibly delicious thing to eat – tender eggplant cloaked in a gravy of cashew paste, poppy seeds, green chilli, turmeric and mustard seeds (of course). It makes the perfect foil for the more pungently spiced pompano shorshe, which, if you order the smaller portion, arrives as a single, mustard seed-freckled fish steak sitting in an assertively salty, bitter and spicy pool of sauce.
Bengali sweets occupy their own universe, and in my opinion they’re a non-negotiable. Among them is kheer (or payesh), a lush rice pudding scented with spices and sultanas; rosogolla, a springy cheese ball soaked in sugar syrup; and rosomalai, perhaps the most indulgent of all: cottage cheese dumplings in a puddle of caramel-hued milk. Pint-sized bites of magic.
What’ll it set me back?
Parbon is a flexible kind of place in this regard. The Very Hungry Caterpillar-esque meal my dining partner and I had – three snacks, three mains, two desserts, bread, rice and tea – rounded out to $72.41 ($36.20 per person), which is extremely reasonable considering the fact that we left completely stuffed and with leftovers for two generously portioned lunches the next day.
Those with a little more restraint could eat for considerably less. A few snacks, a main and a dessert could easily come in under $30 per person. Many dishes are strikingly affordable: the eggplant posto, for example, is $12.99, and some of the snacks and sweets will cost you just $1.99 each. It could also be fun, and also rather economical, to go as a group as they offer a range of family feasts for four ranging from $51.90 to $99.99. This is all to say that the real determinant of cost is not the menu but your ability to resist ordering everything. Good luck.
Parbon Tasty Kitchen
934 New North Road, Mount Albert
Monday to Friday, 11am-10pm; Saturday to Sunday, 8am-10pm
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