Open kitchen
One working day, 4:00 AM to close
Start 4:00 AMThe Bidhan day starts at 4:00 AM when the milk arrives, not when the counter opens. Chhena is set and pressed by 5:30, Chhena Poda goes into a low oven before the first customer, Sunabeda opens at 6:00 AM and Semiliguda at 7:30, and khara is fried in small batches from the afternoon until close.
Why a sweet shop should be willing to show you this
The day, station by station
4:00 AM
The milk arrives
Milk bay
The day starts with milk, not with the counter. It is checked and boiled before anything else happens, because everything the sweets kitchen makes starts as chhena or khoya from this milk.
4:30 AM
Chhena is set and pressed
Chhena vat
Milk is split, drained through cloth and pressed. Chhena that is set today is used today — it is not held over, which is the single reason the syrupy sweets taste the way they do.
5:00 AM
Chhena Poda goes in
The oven
Chhena Poda is roasted slowly at a low temperature for hours. It is the longest job in the kitchen and it is started first so it is ready when the counter opens.
5:30 AM
Syrup, rasgulla and jalebi
Kadhai line
The kadhais come up to heat. Rasgulla goes into syrup, jalebi is piped straight into hot ghee, and the first trays start moving to the front.
6:00 AM
The counter opens
Sunabeda counter
Sunabeda opens at 6:00 AM every day. Tiffin is served from opening; the first sweets are already on the tray.
7:30 AM
Semiliguda opens
Semiliguda
The second outlet opens at 7:30 AM with tiffin and the sweets that came across from the same kitchen that morning.
11:00 AM
Tiffin ends, meals begin
Meals kitchen
The tiffin line closes around 11:00 AM at Semiliguda and the meals kitchen takes over — rice, dal, curries, biryani and the tandoor later in the evening.
4:00 PM
Khara starts
Fry station
Singada, bara, alu chop and cutlet are fried in small batches from the afternoon, deliberately in small batches, so that what you get in the evening has not been sitting.
6:00 PM
The evening rush
Front counter
The heaviest hour of the day at both counters. Most of the khara fried that afternoon is gone by the end of it.
8:00 PM
Sunabeda closes; packing for tomorrow
Wash and pack
Sunabeda closes at 8:00 PM. Trays come apart, surfaces and utensils are washed down, and tins are packed for the next morning. Semiliguda serves until 10:00 PM.
What we will and will not do in here
No artificial colour
Nothing on the sweets counter is coloured artificially. The colour you see is caramelisation, saffron, or the ingredient itself.
Nothing bought in and re-labelled
Every sweet, namkeen and khara item sold under this name is made in this kitchen. Ice cream and packaged drinks are the only bought-in items and they are sold in their own branding.
Chhena is made daily, not held
Chhena is set fresh each morning and used the same day. Anything unsold at the end of the day does not go back into production.
Cold counter for chhena sweets
Syrupy and chhena sweets are held in a chilled counter through the day. Dry sweets sit at room temperature, which is where they belong.
Staff training
Handling, wash-down and packing are taught on the floor by people who have done the job for years. Several of the kitchen staff have been here more than fifteen years.
Sourcing and storage
| Milk | Delivered before dawn each day and boiled on arrival. Chhena and khoya are made here from it. |
|---|---|
| Ghee | Used for frying the sweets that call for it. Where an item is described as ghee-fried, it is fried in ghee. |
| Khoya | Reduced in-house rather than bought in. |
| Colour | No artificial colour on the sweets counter. |
| Cold chain | Chhena and syrupy sweets held in a chilled counter through the day; dry sweets at room temperature. |
| Packing | Boxed at the counter when you buy, not pre-packed the night before. |
FSSAI licence
The licence is on the wall, not yet on this page
The FSSAI licence for each outlet is displayed at the counter as the law requires. The numbers are being added to this page and to both outlet pages. Until they are here, we would rather leave the space blank than print a number we have not checked.
What the kitchen looks like
Photography of the kitchen is being shot. Until those frames exist, these are drawings of the stations described above — a drawing is understood as a drawing, where a photograph would be a claim about reality.
Come and look
The Sunabeda counter opens at 6:00 AM, which is late enough that the difficult part is done and early enough that you can still see the trays being carried out. It is the shortest possible version of this page.