Bangladeshi Cuisine

Bangladeshi cuisine is the rich, subtly spiced food of Bengal, built above all on rice and fish, reflecting a land laced with rivers. The saying that Bengalis are made of fish and rice rings true, and the prized hilsa, the national fish, cooked in mustard, is the celebrated centrepiece. Everyday meals pair rice with fish or meat curries, lentil dal, and vegetables, often flavoured with the region's distinctive mustard oil and panch phoron spice blend. Rich biryanis, the beloved kacchi biryani of Dhaka, and an extraordinary array of milky sweets like roshogolla and mishti doi complete a distinctive cuisine.

What you actually see

• Hilsa fish - the prized national fish, cooked in mustard.
• The fish and rice - the everyday curries with rice.
• Kacchi biryani - the rich, fragrant Dhaka biryani.
• The sweets - the milky roshogolla and mishti doi.

When to go

Year-round; local eateries and biryani houses serve the classics, and the famous sweet shops are an institution, with Bengalis renowned for their love of milky sweets. The traditional Bengali new year and festivals bring special foods, including the rural favourite panta bhat, fermented rice with fried hilsa.

Honest expectations

Bangladeshi food is fish-, rice- and sweet-heavy and, while flavourful, can be oily and, in places, genuinely spicy, so the timid should ask for milder curries, and the bony but delicious hilsa takes some care to eat. The usual precautions with water and street food apply. Subtle, distinctive and quite different from the better-known cuisines of the wider subcontinent, though, and finished with its beloved sweets, Bengali food is a genuine delight.

Nearby

Dhaka's biryani houses and sweet shops and every town's eateries are the places.