Bhut Jolokia, Bubble Tea, Guwahati
Volume 5 | Issue 3 [July 2025]

Bhut Jolokia, Bubble Tea, Guwahati
—Rituparna Patgiri

Volume 5 | Issue 3 [July 2025]

This is Guwahati today:  McDonald’s, Domino’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), Barista, Starbucks; Indo-Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Mughlai restaurants; Manipuri rice hotels and Naga kitchens; street food: momo, phuchka,  chowmein, spiral potato, singora (samosa), kosuri (kachodi), chana chaat, sweet corn; burritos.

There are also local variations of certain popular pan-Indian dishes. For instance, biryani has been adapted into a bamboo shoot version, which is a perfect combination of the national and the local. Items which have not been traditionally a part of the Assamese food palette, like lassi, kulfi, etc., are also now commonly available. Bakeries, too, have been a significant part of Guwahati’s public culture. Sheikh Brothers, one of the oldest bakeries, was established in 1885 in Pan Bazaar at the heart of Guwahati city. One can also think back to a time when people sold bakery products in cycle carts going from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. The ringing of the bell would make children and adults come out and buy fresh bakery products like bread, biscuits, cream rolls, cakes. Instead of them one finds dessert shops like Qalaa, Cake Corner, which also deliver food through online delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy.

Historically, street food in the city has included local food items like different kinds of pithas (rice cakes), biscuits, fulori (pakoda), boot bhaji (fried grams), and tea. Betel nut (tamul paan) shops, too, are a prominent part of the city’s foodscape. People from older generations reminisce about how their mornings used to start with a cup of laal saah (red tea) and tekeli pitha (steamed rice cake). One can still find these tea stalls in different corners of the city. The largest consumer base of these tea stalls is people from the working classes and government offices. Tea stalls outside government offices remain a common sight.

The youth, though, prefer other street food items, primarily what is known as fast food. Therefore, one can find shops selling sweet corn, momo, phuchka, chowmein, chaat, etc. near colleges, universities, parks, tourist places, malls, etc. Tea, a food crop which has become the symbol of the state, has been adapted to suit youth demands. It is available in places such as Kadak Chai, My Chai Stories and The Tea Story, which allow them to experiment with tea. Different forms of experimental tea, like bubble tea, iced tea, and matcha tea, offer novelty and experimentation, which the youth enjoy.

The city now has a vibrant cafe culture, with the youth dominating the customer base. Asian cuisine, such as Korean, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese etc., is hugely popular. Indo-Chinese and Korean are the two most popular cuisines, particularly among the youth. There are also now cafes which use Korean pop culture themes to decorate their interiors thematically. For instance, in Kalita Cafe in Guwahati, one can see quirky wallpapers and photo frames of popular Korean music bands. They also have BTS cushion covers, which make it an attraction for K-pop enthusiasts. The café also has signature Korean BBQ dishes on the menu.

Most of these cafes and restaurants are well-decorated, with most of them becoming Instagram favourites. Being ‘Insta-worthy’ or ‘Instagrammable’ is a quality that these cafes and restaurants want to possess. They know that it is important to the young population to post photographs of food and food places. This desire is not reflected only in the decor but in the food as well. Several dishes (colourful beverages, desserts, etc.) are created specifically to make them look attractive on Instagram. There are restaurants like The Maroon Room, which also have designated photographers who click photographs of their customers, food, beverages, etc. and upload them on the Instagram page. Many of these places also offer a blend of music and food. Live music is a part of the charm in places like Freemason’s Brewworks, The Maroon Room, Cafe Hendrix, etc.

Food in these spaces is not only about eating but also creating an experience of luxury and leisure. It has become an integral part of the immersive consumerist experience. Apart from street food outside, public places like heritage buildings, museums, riverbanks, shopping malls, etc., also have street food carts, cafes, eateries and food courts nearby. The objective is to provide a holistic, leisurely environment to the consumers. However, this foodscape of Guwahati is upper-middle-class-centred.

Along with the growing number of cafes and restaurants, several tea shops and rice hotels are part of the city’s foodscape. Tea shops, popularly known as saahor dokan, have been a part of Assam’s eating culture since post-independent times. Most of these tea shops sell tea, different kinds of sweets – golla, kalakand, lal mohan, molai somsom, borfi, samosa, kachori and nimki. The other staple food item in these shops is poori or porotha sobzi. The sobzi could be made with potatoes, soyabean and gramseeds, or it can also be bootor dail (a lentil soup made from split chickpeas). The plate is incomplete without pickle (made from either mango or olive) or chutney (coriander, chickpeas or lentils). In some areas of Assam, the poori sobzi plate also has regional variations. For instance, in tribal-dominated areas, one can find a dry fish chutney as part of the plate. It is a staple breakfast food that people have, particularly in tea shops and local dhabas.

Sweet shops, too, are an integral part of the city’s food culture. Sweets are rarely made at home, but instead bought from these shops. These sweet shops also sell other dairy products like curd, paneer. In fact, for most social occasions like marriages, birthdays, people buy sweets, curd in large quantities from these sweet shops.

Apart from tea and sweet shops, rice hotels are an integral part of the city’s eating culture. As the name suggests, these rice hotels primarily sell rice. They have a fixed menu and offer different kinds of thalis. This veg thali is a staple, and a customer can add meat, fish or egg to their plate. These are primarily meant for the working classes, who get to eat a full meal at a reasonable price. One can also find office goers eating their lunches in these rice hotels. It is interesting because one doesn’t find people carrying a packed lunch with them as a regular sight in the city. This is particularly true in government offices where a packed lunch is still a rarity. The idea of eating gorom bhaat – steaming hot rice, is something which people hold on to and, as such, prefer eating in these rice hotels. In spite of changes in the eating habits of the youth, rice remains a staple for many, particularly during lunch hours.

The contrast between the cafes and these rice hotels is clear. The cafes focus on aesthetics and presentation, whereas for the rice hotels, the focus is on quick turnover with ready meals. The cafes invest heavily in their furniture, interior decoration and cutlery. Food is served on ceramic utensils. This is not the case in the rice hotels. For seating, they have plastic chairs and tables or wooden desks and benches. They serve their food in either steel or plastic utensils. The menu shows the differences between classes. Cafes have a diverse menu that offers different kinds of food items, whereas in rice hotels, the menu is fixed. The other distinctive characteristic of rice hotels is that they are not available on food delivery platforms. Most of them have customers who are regular and come and eat their food there.

One can argue that restaurants are more family-friendly than cafes. While cafes are primarily dominated by youth – couples, friends, office groups, restaurants see families come together for a meal. It is also a common sight to see women from the upper middle classes having friendly get-togethers and kitty parties in restaurants. These restaurants serve various cuisines, North Indian, South Indian, and food from the region. In the restaurants that claim to be Assamese or ethnic, the thali is the main attraction, which contains rice along with vegetables, fish and meat. The menu comprises pigeon thali, pork thali, mutton thali, chicken thali, fish thali, veg thali. Some of these places also have traditional alcoholic beverages from indigenous communities of the region on their menus. What is interesting is that Assamese and other cuisines from the state get characterised as ethnic, whereas food from North India, South India or other regions is categorised as ‘Indian’. Food from neighbouring northeastern states like Nagaland and Manipur also gets categorised as ‘ethnic food’. This distinction is not just culinary but also social and political. Interestingly, many of these restaurants also serve other food items. For instance, Paradise, one of Assam’s oldest restaurants, has a dish called bhut jolokia wings, which is a local twist given to the popular chicken wings with king chilli.

Presentation of food in the Assamese and other ethnic restaurants creates an ambience of ‘ethnicity’. Food is served in bell metal utensils. And the decoration of these restaurants is also with local products. The nomenclature too reflects a difference, as the cafes primarily have anglicised names in comparison to local restaurants, which have vernacular phrases as part of their names. Khilonjiya (Local), Paro Jodi Khaa (Eat if You Can), Parampara (Tradition) and Tholua (Indigenous) are a few examples. But interestingly, none of these foods, be it Assamese or ethnic, is seen as Indian.

Within the cuisine of the state as well, there is a hierarchy. The food of caste Hindus is seen as Assamese food, whereas that of indigenous communities like Bodos, Rabhas, Missings, is seen as ethnic. It reflects what is allowed to represent the region at a national level. This reflects the national trend where Indian cuisine is typically synonymous with North Indian or South Indian food. These culinary hierarchies reflect how nationalism marginalises regional and indigenous identities.

In popular understanding, Assamese food has been clubbed together homogeneously with either ‘Northeastern cuisine’ or Bengali cuisine. However, there is no Northeastern cuisine as the region is diverse, with each community having their distinctive food habits. At the same time, Assamese food shares parallels with Bengali cuisine but also has distinctive ingredients and cooking methods. For instance, tenga (sour) and khar (alkaline) dishes are distinctively unique to Assamese cuisine. It is also not as simple as has been described often. Celebrity chefs have created the narrative that Assamese food is simple to cook and easy on the stomach. While some of it is true, it is also incorrect to limit the understanding of Assamese food to ‘easy to cook’. Preparation of Assamese food involves techniques like roasting and grilling. It would also be wrong to say that there are no uses of spices. While garam masala and khara masala may not be used in the way it is used in some other cuisines, spices like ginger, garlic, jeera,  are generously used. Chillies, too, are a huge part of Assamese food. In most communal feasts, one can find raw chilli being offered on the side as an accompaniment along with a slice of kaji nemu (lemon).

Food is an interesting site to observe the changing nature of Guwahati. The city’s growing cosmopolitan nature is reflected in its expanding food culture as the global, the national, and local tastes come together. What is unique for people from the region becomes ‘strange’ for those outside. The upper-caste, middle-class imagination is different from the lower-caste and indigenous one. Debates on what constitutes Assamese food remains contentious.

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Acknowledgement-

The author would like to thank Professor Arupjyoti Saikia, for his guidance on this subject.