Eating Out: BHAAT

Eating Out: BHAAT

Although the F&B industry of Guwahati has developed at a rapid pace, Guwahatians had always felt the need for a quality restaurant which serves traditional Assamese cuisines in a home-cooked manner and at affordable rates. While there are indeed a few restaurants serving ethnic cuisine, they either fall short on the authenticity of the dishes served or miss out on the greater clientele because of high rates of the food items.

However, in recent times, a quaint little outlet in the Guwahati club area of the city is fast becoming the talk of the town for serving homely cooked Assamese dishes at very affordable rates. The restaurant also serves a decent amount of pork dishes which are very juicy and succulent. We are talking about Bhaat, which is located below the Ulubari flyover en route to Guwahati Club.

Launched on February 25, 2019 Bhaat is the brainchild of Abhishek Borah, a foodie whose dream had always been to open an ethnic Assamese restaurant. Talking about the concept behind Bhaat, Abhishek says, “It has always been an ardent dream of mine to launch an ethnic Assamese restaurant. In 2018, one of my friends informed me of a vacant space which was available below the Ulubari flyover stretch leading to Guwahati Club. Although we did not have a clear cut idea of the business, we started Bhaat in a bid to provide Assamese thalis and pork delicacies at very reasonable rates. Our main target audience was the office-goers and students from the nearby institutes.”

Over the course of time, however, Bhaat has soon gathered a reputation of serving some of the best thalis and pork dishes in town. Prashant says, “When we first started Bhaat, we only served thalis and a limited range of pork dishes for the first few months. But very soon we realised that there is a huge market for pork dishes which are cooked in a homely fashion and which are served at affordable rates. So we started serving pork items in various avatars. However, our signature dishes remains our thalis and pork with bamboo shoot, pork with sesame seeds, etc”.

The restaurant is at present manned by 5 experienced chefs who have a lot of experience in the F&B industry. “I am assisted by two other highly qualified cooks and three helpers,” says Abhishek, adding that the menu of the restaurant will be updated very shortly.

At present, the restaurant has a seating area of 500 square feet and can accommodate around 20-25 people at one go. The restaurant, however, also has plans of expansion. “We were a bit hesitant about the response of people to our restaurant since it is located in a not-so-easily locatable area. However, people who have come once are highly satisfied with our food and keep coming back. Most of our publicity is by word of mouth and we although we don’t have a lot of flying customers, we are quite happy with our current customer footfall,” says Abhishek.

Some of the bestsellers in the eatery include the pork items like Pork with Bamboo Shoot, Pork with Sesame Seeds, etc. “Although this is my first entry in the F&B industry, I have realised that it is essential for the management to have a keen interest in food if any new outlet has to survive. We constantly try to maintain the quality of our food items and I myself spend a lot of time inside the kitchen,” says Abhishek.

Bhaat has also tied up with online delivery portals so that one can order their preferred choice of food right from the comfort of their homes. “At present, we have tied up with Swiggy, Ubereat and Zomato and will be available on all other online delivery portals very soon,” says Abhishek.

Giving her opinion about the food, a customer Tamal Chakraborty opined, “The restaurant serves great food. One should try the pork dishes in the menu.” Another customer Ashutosh Kashyap said, “The restaurant serves awesome smoked pork. One of the best place which serves such quality smoked smoked pork in the city.”

Talking about the viability of ethnic restaurants in the city, Abhishek feels that there is still space for new restaurant serving authentic thalis and pork items. As he says, “Although there has been a splurge of restaurants offering ethnic Assamese food items, there is still space for new entrants serving quality Assamese food items. We have taken great care to source all our items and spices from Dimapur so that people get the best taste of our pork items”.

A meal for two will roughly cost you around INR 400-500. So next time you are in the Guwahati Club area or you are sitting at home wishing to try some delectable homemade dishes, just pick up your phone and order from this cozy little restaurant!

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