Any fool will tell you that we Bengalis have a long-standing love affair with fish. Outside of roshogollas, maachh-bhaat is what typifies our cuisine. And this love affair is no casual flirtation either. It's a lifelong commitment that starts with the market and ends at the table. But there's a problem that Bengalis face in Mumbai. There is a comparative lack of river fish in the city. So unless it's the market in Chembur, your fishmonger's options are usually restricted to catch from the Arabian Sea. And that's something that the proprietors of Rajbari Rasoi, a new Bengali restaurant in Lokhandwala, didn't take into account when they designed their menu. For, they included freshwater staples like boyal, koi and topshe, without realising that sourcing the same here would be as difficult as finding a vada pav on Kolkata's streets.

But let that not take away from the outstanding job they have otherwise done of recreating the food of zamindari Bengali families. Even the ambience is such that you feel like you've walked into a rich man's home in North Kolkata, which has an air of old-world regality about it. Green wood-panelled windows, hand-held palm leaf fans hung on the walls and large metal thalis are all testament to a careful attention to detail. And though the menu is indeed over-ambitious, the kurta-clad manager informs us that it will soon be trimmed.