Talab — Restaurant in San Jose

One of the biggest pain points of living in the Bay Area for me, used to be the absence of a single establishment which serves authentic Kolkata style Bengali food. I recently visited Seattle and it was further insult to injury to find once such place in Kirkland, in spite of having a significantly lower Bengali population than here. Bay area Bengalis seemed to be condemned to a fate of depressed by deprivation of Bengali food which tastes like home, frustrated with the process of trying out every place which promised it and disappointed time and again, stuck in a rut of hopeful excitement, disappointment and questioning life’s choices.

If you are able to relate to all or some of these emotions, I’m super excited to let you know : you needn’t look any further than Talab. We first heard about Talab from a friend who heavily endorsed their Luchi torkari weekend brunch. This single dish was the main attraction for our visit today and we had called ahead to ask about it. Initially, we were informed by our server that it was sold out for the day, but soon after, the owner, Suparna greeted us, confirmed if we were the ones who had called, took pity on our disappointed and hungry faces and agreed to make another batch! ❤️ 6 stars for above and beyond service! We may have gotten a little carried away when our ravenous group of 8 ordered Fish Fry, Chicken roll, Rice, Posto Chicken, Mutton Dakbungalow, Awadhi Mutton, Butter Chicken, Mishti Doi, Roshogolla and Gurer Shondesh, which was pretty much all of the menu. But Pro-tip : if you want to try everything on the menu, go with a larger group.

Verdict on the Food : Stellar. 5 stars. 10 stars. 20 stars. Heartiest compliments to Chef Prabin! Our entire group LOVED the food. Each dish tasted exactly like home. The mutton dishes and posto chicken reminded me exactly of the taste of Kolkata I miss so dearly. The butter chicken was old Delhi style - the tomato-cream gravy simmered to perfection - thankfully not the saccharine soaked abomination we find in the name of butter chicken in most Indian food places in the Bay. The mishti doi has my full heart.

I took one star off my review for the ambience since AC was out of order and there is a heat wave in the Bay currently. But that is easily fixed and a small trade off for the excellent food.

If you’re still reading my review, my only question is, why haven’t you started driving to Talab yet? 🙂 In closing, please support Suparna and her amazing new business, which I’m so so thankful for. I for one, am already looking forward to my...

Found this new Bengali restaurant in town, had to try it out with our bong group. Overall the ambience was nice, manager was welcoming , food were mostly great , prices are little higher than other places I guess, with some scopes of further improvements in service . Overall a good place to enjoy authentic Bengali food 😋 , definitely recommend 👍🏻

We ordered : Kolkata fish cutlet 👌👌 crispy thin crust, tasty inner filling with tilapia, not vetki though 🙃 Lasooni chicken Kebab 👌👌soft and jucy Korai shootir Kochuri and Aloor dum - Kochuris were OKAY type , little thicker, should have been more fluffy and crisp , and the oil smelled off to me Aloor Dum was tasty 😋 l Mughlai Parota with Chicken Keema, 👌👌👌😋and aloor tarkari 👌(was extra tangy due to excess use of tomato) Mutton Dak Bunglow 👌👌👌 (ordered Jira rice separately, doesn’t come with the curry) Misti Doi 👌👌👌, Rasogolla 👌👌👌, Gurer sondeh 👌

Pomfret Fry was unavailable 🥲

Drinks: Mango lassi, Masala Chai both were nice 👌. (actually Wanted to try Irani chay and Masala Chhach , both were unavailable)

Few hiccups in service that can be improved : Our orders came in confusing order, and successive orders came in too fast. Like we were not yet done with appetizers but the Main course was on table. we were not done with Main course and desserts were served. One of the appetizers came after main course. So I think the staffs need to coordinate more appropriately and ask the visitors if they are ready for the next food The menu card should explicitly mention how many pieces are there in each entry , to avoid confusion. Or add reference pictures true to its size For all the starters the side sauces ( like Kasundi, green chutney) given were inadequate for the food proportions, we had to ask for...

Food We ordered Fish Fry, Mughlai Paratha, Chicken Biriyani, Chicken Roll (Group of 12 people) Fish Fry:: It was OK types, bad thing is they used Tilapia, which had a fishy smell. As this a Bengali cuisine restaurant, they should use Vetki fish, at least Swai (basa). There was no proper marination of the fish. Chicken Biriyani:: They claim it's Kolkata style, but looks like they don't even know how the Kolkata biriyani tastes. We even prepare better Kolkata biriyani at home. Totally disgusting. Mughlai Paratha:: It was the most FALTU mughlai paratha we ever had. Not properly cooked and the size of the paratha is even not sufficient for a 10 years old kid. You should serve at least a proper portion. This is the 3rd class mughlai paratha we ever tasted.

Service What a nonsense service it was!!! After ordering, we waited for more than an hour to get the fish fry. We ordered around 9:30 pm, and we got the FALTU mughlai paratha around 11:30 pm. Is it justifiable? There were max to max 20 customers including us. They can't manage the orders at all.

Atmosphere Nothing special to talk about the Atmosphere. It ruined our dinner that day. None of our friends was happy with the service and food.

Note:: They refunded the price of 1 Biriyani and 1 Mughlai paratha to compensate, and we never asked for a refund. It's not about refund, we were there for a pleasant Durga Puja dinner and it got ruined.

Bad food. Overpriced. Pathetic service.

Don't recommend the restaurant as there are many good bengali food option in Bay Area. Talab is not even...