Thursday, April 23, 2015

Cafe Ekante : Enter by Boat

On one end of Eco Park, there is the Banglar Hat where the best of Bengal handicrafts are on sale in a great ambiance amidst display of Kolkata's iconic hand-rickshaw . Opposite to Eco Park, there is Mother's Wax Museum where a lot of Bengal's icons are photographed every day by hundreds of visitors. Now at the Eco Island within Eco Park, we are setting up a stylized Bengali food joint, a joint where you can enter only by the boat (remember the first scenes of Enter the Dragon :) ) . Overlooking the 100 acre huge lake, a spectacular view will greet people as they savour the awesome 360 degree view while tasting a fine selection of the best in Banglar food.


Named Cafe Ekante, you can reach it from Eco Park by a special country boat. Boat ride ticket is deducted from your food bill at Cafe Ekante. You get choice of beverages (Chilled Gandharaj Lebur Sharbat with Mint being the star !), munchies (mochar chop, moglai paratha, even jhal muri and more), main course (desi murgir jhol, dab chingri, Koi machher Ganga Jamuna and many more), and dessert (star: nolen gurer ice cream ). AGM(Tourism) Tirtha Sadhu and his team is busy finalising the menu. We are planning to open by May.




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These appeared in today's papers:
Times of India dt 23 April 2015
Hindustan Times dt 23 April 2015

9 comments:

  1. Opening a Bengali restaurant in Eco park is a great idea ! This should be kept open in the morning as well serving authentic Bengali breakfast like luchi, kachuri, jilipi etc.

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  2. We will see after initial few months

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    1. The boat service to the island should be frequent enough - sometimes it is difficult to get on a sightseeing boat because they will not start running unless they have minimum 10 people. This would deter prospective customers from visiting the restaurant. Also, ample advertising should be done near the entrance plazas so that every visitor is aware of the new restaurant.

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    2. I second Sudipta. Can we have little more number of boats? May be the ones with 4-6 seats? Also can we have short speed boat like thrill rides in the lake inside Eco Park?

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    3. Just hope to find it Open when we visit Kolkata at start of May.

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  3. As far as I know, Ganga Sagar and Mandarmani are yet to have power connections.

    Since you are at the helm of affairs in GSDA, Can we have large number of Solar Panel installations to solve the problem to some extent at least? GS will have surely have large unutilised Govt Land I believe.

    Also can we some hotels in GangaSagar and commercial hovercraft services from BabuGhat / Fairly Place. Even if Govt starts with some subsidy for first few months, in case hotels and rudimentary recreational facilities are available, GSDA and Tourism Dept can make a killing in every weekend as well as the upcoming Durga Pujo which is less than 6 months away.

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  4. Had an awesome experience in Cafe Ekante today(30th May,2015).. Enjoyed the boat journey,the food and the service... Touched by the interior decoration of Cafe Ekante. However, if the print out menu card could be replaced by a designed menu card like menus on laminated banana leaves or peepal leaves or sal leaves, I think this might go with the ambiance...

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  5. Can we have regular update on the Menu with price?

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  6. Will the return boat fare be deducted from cafe bill?

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