Tiretta or Terreti Bazaar is tiny, and reflecting the shrinking of Kolkata’s Chinese population, which has decreased to only a few thousand. As a result, the fleeting morning Terreti Bazaar is one of the few places in Kolkata where you can still find great Indo-Chinese street food. A fascinating street that’s Chinese yet Indian at the same time.

Here you’ll find mixtures of Chinese & Indian shoppers, eaters, and depending on what day you go, you can always found some people who is looking for something tasty to eat.

Vendors usually set up their stalls as early as 5:00 a.m. Over the next several hours, people gather in front of the steamers to chat while snacking on small plates of food. By 8:00 a.m. most vendors will have sold out.

Pork, which is commonly eaten in China and throughout Southeast Asia, is not commonly eaten in most parts of India (apart from the northeastern provinces lik Nagaland). But at Terreti Bazaar where lots of Chinese shoppers come, they have fresh pig butcheries to fulfill all your porky affairs.

Steamed baos,
Dumplings (Momo) in both steamed and deep fried forms,
Fish ball soups,
Meat ball soup,
Pork Sausages
were all breakfast options.

I become incredibly hungry after seeing and smelling all the delicious looking things and tried some of the delicacies.

My first stop was a plate of Steamed Pork Momo from this friendly man. We ordered three plates of his delicious dumplings or Momos.

The steamed pork momos were stuffed with Minced Pork, onions and Garlic. They were juicy and piping hot. A dip in the hot sauce and you will be pretty happy.

After a round of Dumplings, we proceeded on to order a bowl of soup filled with Fish Ball & Meat balls. Soup was common for both Fish & Meat but the Fish ball was better among these two. Flavours were clean and subtle.

Standing in the middle of those people, while resting our hot bowl of soup on a circular table, we thoroughly enjoyed our Chinese breakfast in the middle of Tiretta Bazaar, in this City of Joy.