Hill Town Blues on a Plate

Rivers ran together to sing a crystal tune
Stones skipped on the water, 
circles around the moon
Oooh, yeah, yeah, yeah
When the full moon shines, 
The mountain pines are swayin'
Oooh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Close your eyes and listen to the guitars playin'

Text: Malini Banerjee
 
Except this time it was not the guitars singing but our palates when two "Mountain Girls"(also name of the song quoted above) Chef Ishita Rai Dewan from Kalimpong and Chef Katherine Lim a Hakka Chinese origin chef from Kolkata collaborated to host the pop up The Mountain Table a two-day event at Glenburn Penthouse in Kolkata on July 4 and July 5 2025.

The idea, said Chef Lim, "was to tell a story through our food that links lesser-known cuisines of the Eastern Himalayas, spanning the diverse food traditions of Kalimpong, Sikkim, Darjeeling, parts of Nepal, China and Bhutan as well."

Both chefs used not just the polished, mass-appeal dishes found in restaurants, but also ingredients and techniques from their own homes and cultures. Chef Lim, who started as a home cook in Kolkata, is well known for her homemade rice wine, which has deep caramel and chocolatey flavours. Those very flavours were highlighted in the Huangju Spritzer with soda and her rice wine that is made from a glutinous rice variant from Shillong and local yeast from China.

Next up came Rai's Mountain Platter with Chives Pakora, Kalimpong Cheese, Tama Dalle Aachar, Timur Dalle Garlic Chutney, which combined the humble fritter with the umami cheese and fermented spicy chutneys.

Any Nepali restaurant worth its salt will always have a Nepali mutton jhol, but in the starter that came next, the mutton was elevated as a taco - smoked mutton wrapped in soft buckwheat pancakes and topped with a smidgeon of fiery dalle salsa.
Combining wild coriander or the sawtooth coriander that grows amply in the hills with a typical roast pork belly, Chef Lim presented a cracker of a dish.

Chef Rais' phing salad was an umami burst of glass noodles, greens and kalimpong cheese, though the highlight of our evening, or so we thought, was their tribute to Mountain Streams — the Mud Crab and Prawn Soup with Jimbu, Timur, nutmeg, and garlic ginger oil. This beautifully smooth and balanced soup with a host of crustaceans and their tender meat for texture was delicious enough to drown in!

Our second favourite was the Pearl barley Risotto with oyster Mushrooms. Luscious creamy risotto with timur-coated mushrooms, it was a play on textures that was delightful. Another gorgeous main course from Lim was the Beer Stewed Duck that stewed the meaty, rich poultry meat in beer and aromatic spices of Yunnan, like star anise, Sichuan peppercorns and more.

Rounding it all off were cocktails by Hapusa. The Himlayan Dry Gin presented us with a plate of Himalayan aromatics, and each cocktail used Himalayan ingredients, be it in the form of lapsang souchong tea or Himalayan tea. Chiso Chyaa used the gin with the smoky tea, spiced plum and bitters to make a lovely spirit-forward and aromatic drink.

We ended our hill town expedition with a novel dessert, Paoluda, which used sago, black rice, coconut milk, condensed milk, seasonal fruits, crispy bread and ice cream that gave us a glimpse of what the Persian falooda became through its travels.