Calcutta Street Food: Kolkata’s Best Cheap Eats

I love Indian food but sadly haven’t yet made it to India to indulge in these rich, captivating flavors in their place of origin. Luckily, our friends at Two Together have shared the following insights about the wonderful Calcutta street food of their home town.

Best Street Food IN Calcutta

A vendor selling street food in Calcutta — The street food of Calcutta dazzles with its vibrancy, diversity, and rich flavors.

Calcutta, or Kolkata as it is now known, is a popular destination for food lovers, with its vibrant and diverse street food scene attracting foodies from all over the world.

The city’s multicultural history is richly reflected in the variety of food that you can eat on the streets of Calcutta: From the very Bengali kochuri to the Chinese-inspired chowmein to the Bengali cousin of the Central-Asian samsa, there’s a lot to eat here, and every bite will take you on a culinary voyage through the city’s layered past.

Whether you’re nibbling on a plate of ghugni (spiced chickpeas) or savoring a roll stuffed with eggs and kebabs, the flavors of each dish will launch you on an exciting exploration of Calcutta’s culinary heritage.

Whether you are a first-time visitor to India or a seasoned traveler exploring this one-of-a-kind marvel, we think you’ll agree that Kolkata is the city where you can find some of the best street food in India!

And if you’ve already enjoyed many of the must-try New Delhi street foods, you’ll be amazed at how the Calcutta lineup is so different but equally amazing! Let’s check it out.

Jhaal Muri

One of the best foodie things to do in Kolkata is to enjoy the city’s amazing street foods. And perhaps Calcutta’s most popular street food is jhaal muri, which literally translates to “spicy puffed rice.”

Crispy and crunchy, hot and spicy, jhaal muri is a street food dish that is made with puffed rice tossed with finely sliced red onions, green chilies, a handful of spices such as black salt and chaat masala, pungent mustard oil, roasted peanuts, a hint of lime juice, and a Calcutta special snack mix called chanachur.

Often jhaal muri sellers have secret spice mixes that they add to their concoction to put their own signature on the dish’s flavors and fragrance. Sometimes cubes of boiled potatoes are chucked into the mix, or a tablespoon of boiled white peas are added. There's no set recipe, so don’t be surprised to find a spoon of sweet and sour tamarind paste added to your puffed rice too.

Traditionally, jhaal muri is served in paper cones and garnished with sliced coconut. This handheld is the perfect snack on the go—and it has been for a long time. As youngsters in Calcutta, jhaal muri was one of our primary after-school snacks.

There were a few jhaal muri sellers who set up their temporary stalls just outside our school gates, and we would crowd around the seller eagerly awaiting our turn, mouths watering.

Ultimately, we would be rewarded for our patience with a small paper cone of tasty and tangy jhaal muri laced with spices and green chilies. We would munch on our treat while sharing the newest gossip of the day.

However, the most nostalgic memories of eating jhaal muri for any Calcuttan are from those long rides on local trains or the overnight sleeper trains from Calcutta to Siliguri en route to the mountains of Darjeeling.

Phuchka

Phuchkas are crisp little balls filled with a spicy potato mix and topped with tart tamarind water. Phuchkas taste divine! You pop one into your mouth and bite into it to release all the yummy fillings. Then you crunch and munch and ooh and aah as your tongue tingles with deliciousness.

Phuchka is not the same as panipuri or golgappas that you get in other parts of India. Phuchkas are spicier, tangier, and more tart. They make your mouth water far more. You can never have enough phuchkas!

Breaking one on the little leaf plates that they are served on instead of packing the entire flavor-bomb in your mouth is sacrilege. The outer shell is made of semolina flour for exceptional crispiness, and the potato mixture is laced with spice mixes that vary from seller to seller. Popular choices include tamarind, black salt, lots of red chili powder, chopped green chilies and red onions, and boiled white peas.

The tamarind water contains lime juice and sometimes lime leaves, particularly leaves of the gondhoraj lime that is native to the Ganges Delta and smells ethereal. Nowadays, you can find phuchkas topped with spicy yoghurt chutney, but the ones with tamarind water are a timeless classic.

Since you really can’t get enough of these things, try phuchkas from different sellers in Calcutta and savor the delicious differences.

Singara & Jilipi

Singara, look like Indian samosas — Singara is a popular street food in Calcutta you’ve got to try!

Nothing is more comforting on winter evenings than a cup of cha and some singara. When in Bengal, it’s never samosa, always singara! And if you haven’t read Mayukh Sen’s What’s in a Name: Samosa, Singara, and Semantics, we highly recommend it for a peek into some interesting semantics of food.

So, what is a singara? Like its tasty cousins from central Asia, samsas, a singara is a deep-fried stuffed dough. These triangular dough pockets are most commonly stuffed with a spicy potato mixture containing peanuts and boiled yellow peas. If you’re lucky, there will be bits of coconut too.

The highly elusive fulkopi’r singara—a singara stuffed with cauliflower—is a winter speciality that is coveted by Calcuttans. Singaras are often eaten with jilipi, a syrup-soaked twist of fried dough that perfectly complements the spiciness of the singara.

We’ve often bought singara from a small shop in North Calcutta called Lakshmi Narayan Shaw & Sons. Established in 1918, it is one of the city's oldest snack shops.

The fragrant, spicy potato mixture there is laced with dried red chilies and toasted spices and studded with boiled yellow peas and peanuts. Accompanying the crispy triangles in the paper bag is a syrupy sweet jilipi.

On our visits to Shaw & Sons, we would take a bite into a jilipi and the sugary syrup flooded our tongues; we would then balance this sensation with a big bite of the singara. When you’re in Calcutta, we urge you to do the same. This combination is one of the best breakfasts or snacks you can find anywhere in the world!

Telebhaja

Telebhaja is anything deep-fried and delicious you grab from the neighbourhood telebhaja’r dokan that opens early in the evening, does brisk business for a couple of hours, and then shuts down for the night.

From potatoes, onions, tomatoes, pumpkins, eggplants, and cauliflower florets to hard-boiled eggs, chicken, fish, and shrimps, there is no end to the things that Bengalis love to enjoy fried and delicious.

Broadly, there are two types of telebhaja: one that is breaded and fried like croquettes, and the other that is dipped in chickpea flour batter and then fried. The basic difference between a Bengali chop and a cutlet (pronounced kaat-let) is the shape.

Chops are more rounded and ball-like, while cutlets are flatter. However, telebhaja is not limited to the chop-cutlet dichotomy because there are other items like the fish finger (think British fish fingers but spicier, tastier), fish kobiraji (a very interesting dish where the fried coating on the fish resembles a delicate net or a lacy coverlet), fuluri (fried dough balls), and more.

There’s so much to choose from, we’ve put together a fun guide on how to order at a telebhaja shop. Telebhajas are essential accompaniments to the Calcuttan's bikeler cha or 4 pm tea. Trays laden with porcelain cups full of milky tea, telebhaja from the neighbourhood shop, and a shared bowl of homemade jhaal muri are all part of this daily tea party.

Some of our favourite telebhaja shops in Calcutta are Niranjan Agar in Girish Park, Kalika on College Street, and Apanjan in Kalighat.

Alu Kabli

One of the tastiest street foods in Calcutta is alu kabli, the spicier, zingier cousin of the potato salad with which you’re most familiar that will leave your taste buds tingling and craving endless encores.

OK, so what makes up an alu kabli? First, cubes of boiled potato are prepared. Then, boiled or soaked Bengal gram (local chickpeas) is added to it. This is then mixed with chopped red onion, tamarind extract, mint chutney, black rock salt, green chilies, red chili powder, a few different spices, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Sometimes a few cubes of cucumbers and tomatoes are tossed into the hodgepodge too.

Every bite is an explosion of flavour in the mouth: you get the heat from the chilies, the sourness from the lime juice, the complex sweetness of the tamarind, the pungency of the onions, and the saltiness from the black salt. It is an umami party on your tongue!

At the phuchka seller's, you can get a variation called churmur which is more or less the same as alu kabli, but it is topped with crushed phuchka, which adds a delightful crunch factor and ups the deliciousness.

Chowmein

Chowmein is fried noodles, and on the streets of Calcutta, chowmein is noodles fried over high heat with finely sliced onions, green beans, spring onions, garlic, shredded cabbage, peas, carrots, and your choice of protein.

Soy sauce, ketchup, a splash of vinegar, and occasionally a pinch of MSG are added to this greasy delight, and within minutes of receiving our dishes piled with chowmein on the streets of Calcutta, hungry foodies like us have completely lapped them up.

Calcutta chowmein is the love child of Indian and Chinese culinary traditions and techniques that came into being when Hakka Chinese communities immigrated to Calcutta during the city's heydays.

Today, chowmein is no longer confined to Chinatown. And it is most often paired with its beloved side, chilli chicken: a hugely popular dish made of bite-sized chicken pieces coated with a thin egg batter, fried until golden, and then stir-fried with bell peppers, onions, a pile of green chilies, and various sauces.

Paired together, chowmein and chilli chicken comprise one of Calcutta's most iconic street-food duos.

Ghugni

Caldrons filled with different kinds of curry — Ghugni being prepared by a Calcutta street food vendor

Ghugni, or split yellow pea curry, is another of Calcutta's beloved street foods. You can often find ghugni sellers lugging their massive cauldrons onto local trains and dishing out plate after plate of their piping-hot Bengali specialty to hungry customers.

To make ghugni, soaked yellow peas are first boiled with whole spices, cooked with onions, garlic, ginger, chilies, and more spices, and then served with a dash of spicy tamarind water, a squeeze of the ethereal gondhoraj lime, and a sprinkling of chopped red onion and bhaja moshla (dry roasted spices) topped with some bhujia (another snack mix).

Fun fact: We've had ghugnis at home, in front of school, on local and long-distance trains, and sometimes mixed with muri (puffed rice), and it's genuinely difficult to pick a favourite version. It is also a surprisingly healthy and filling street food, an oxymoron that hits you so hard that you just might need another bowl of ghugni to recover!

Kathi Roll

When in Calcutta, you should definitely treat yourself to a kathi roll because nothing will delight you more than a bite of these egg-draped, multilayered paratha rolls filled with anything from kebabs, paneer, and curried potato to mutton, chicken, and fish.

When it comes to assembling their roll, every Calcuttan has their favourite combination mapped out in their head, and you can hear interesting orders flying outside of roll shops.

Some customers want a Double Egg Roll with just a little bit of tomato sauce and a squeeze of lime. Some will not settle for anything other than an Egg Mutton Tikka Roll with hot chili sauce.

Regardless of what you decide on, as you chomp into your favourite kathi roll, the flaky paratha will allow itself to come undone in your mouth, alongside a healthy dose of the fillings. Together, this combination unleashes a riot of flavours in your mouth.

Indeed, a good kathi roll is a life-changing experience. But be forewarned: It can turn into an addiction.

Kochuri & Chhola'r Dal

Street food stall selling Kochuris — Kolkata kochuris are a great street food option.

Kochuris are the essential breakfast street food in the old city of Calcutta. A kochuri is a deep-fried flatbread that is often stuffed with savoury fillings that range from ground lentils and gram flour to green peas.

Eating a plateful of koraishunti'r kochuri (pea-stuffed kochuri) is a winter morning ritual in many Calcutta households. If you are more adventurous, you can also try the maach'er kochuri, a version that contains a spiced stuffing made of freshly cooked fish. Multiple variations are to be found throughout the city, with some more popular than others.

Although for many, kochuri is a staple breakfast, for me, it has always been an anytime snack, tucked in and around larger meals. Puntiram on College Street is a legendary institution famous for serving their light and fluffy kochuris with a choice of sides. You can either opt for the savoury aloo'r dom (a spicy potato curry) or the more interesting chhola'r dal (a thick, often sweet porridge made with split yellow peas).

The best way to enjoy either of these side choices is to tear open a kochuri halfway to let the steam out, scoop up some aloo'r dom or chola'r dal with it, and as you get lost in the experience, think about what other kind of kochuri you want to try next.

Moghlai Porota

Moghlai porota is a classic Calcutta street food. You take some expertly kneaded dough, spread it in a rectangle as thin as you can go, break in an egg or two and spread that as well, and then gently place a hefty amount of spiced mutton mince (or keema as we call it in Bengali), wrap everything together in the shape of an envelope, and deep fry it real good.

The end result is an international dish that Calcutta has made its own. Many believe that the Turkish gozleme, a meat-filled flatbread, is its predecessor. After being introduced during the times of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir to a version of gozleme, Bengalis were very quick to recognize a winning dish and make it their own.

A quality moghlai porota is always served with some alu'r torkari (spicy dry potato curry) and some julienned salad. It is never too heavy for an early evening snack, and it always makes you want to ask for another one.

Calcutta’s Street Foods: Truly Something for Everyone

We hope you’ve enjoyed this exploration of the amazing variety of delicious Calcutta street foods. We also hope you get a chance to visit our beloved city and to enjoy as many of its inexpensive, flavor-packed street food creations as possible.

We’d love to hear what you’re looking most forward to trying in an upcoming visit, or what you most savored during a stay you’ve already had. Please let us know in the “Comments” section below.

For more on incredible Indian cuisine, read the following:

Top 10 Affordable Restaurants in Delhi
Must-Try Food in Kochi, Kerala, India
Lip-Smacking Good Food in Rajasthan