Hot patties!

The call of the vendor, clad in a lungi and a shirt, carrying a tin hamper that had a yellow bulb on, introduced me to Dhaka's most famous street food.  The hot-patties-wallah as he was portrayed, invariably visited the quaint neighbourhood of Purana Paltan, where my grandmother's lovely two-storied house was located, in the afternoons during siesta time.

Crispy puff pastry triangles, stuffed with beef mince and sautéed with onions, were kept warm in a tin box with the aid of the light. The box was tied around the man's neck with a gamcha.

This was years ago when the options for street food were limited to a few items. However, the shuti kabab and bakarkhani vendor and the hot-patties-wallah were two favourites, and their memory still lingers on.

Patties were Dhaka's favourite. Most of the bakeries still carry this snack. Around the mid-eighties, two pastry shops -- Coopers and Sorento -- introduced the round-shaped chicken patties. It was in the shape of a savoury, small muffin with a tiny puff pastry dot.  The patties looked like a small pastry with a cherry on top. Stuffed with a yummy, soft chicken filling, it instantly won the hearts of Dhakaites and that somehow spelled the end of the triangle beef patties era.

However, recently these old gems are making a rare comeback. "Hashem Chacha" is one figure who vends these old-style patties at the Faculty of Fine Arts or Charukala. With a nonchalant face and a carefree demeanour, he hands out the hot, crispy puff pastry wrapped in torn newspapers.

A bite of the snack takes you back in time. He sells this for Tk 20 per piece and every festival or on any random day, he sits under the canopy of a big tree beside the pond and his presence invariably makes the synergy of Charukala so exhilarating.

Bismillah Misti Mukh & Bakery Ltd in Uttara has also mastered the art of making perfect hot patties. The pastry is kneaded and folded by alternating the layers of butter and dough many times over to get that right puff, which is then filled with a stuffing of beef mince and baked. 

The result is hot patties that are light and flaky and with every bite you can feel the crispy crunch. For Tk 80 a piece it is worth a try if you can brave the Uttara traffic.

These modern-day patties are done in many shapes and sizes and the fillings vary according to the shop's exclusivity but what we crave are the age-old triangle beef patties sold in a tin box with a light on and that tastes the same throughout the ages.