September ’25 Station Bazaar

From temple bites to indigenous kitchen finds, LFC Bhubaneswar blends ancient heritage with homely heat. Come for the pakhala hacks and mustard flavours, stay for the comfort that sticks to your fingers.

Photos by Co-host, Tiyali and Member, Bibhu.

HOST

Rishi Roy

CO-HOST

Tiyali Bose

WHERE WE MET

Prangan by Mango Hotels is a boutique stay in the heart of Bhubaneswar, offering modern rooms, a multi-cuisine restaurant, and warm hospitality—just minutes from the city’s temples, airport, and railway station.

What Members Said

Cheers to an amazing evening with beautiful food stories. Thank you everyone, for the lip-smacking dishes.

Swapnita

Thanks for such a wonderful, fun-filled evening, everyone! Special thanks to the superb hosting by Rishi and Tiyali. I had wonderful food and made amazing friends, I couldn’t be more grateful.

Prachi

A great Sunday evening spent with amazing food, stories, and experiences. The little details and effort that Rishi and Tiyali put into the meetup were amazing!

Jinnie

What We Loved

Chicken cooked with ghee and Pipali (long pepper), with the long pepper itself brought along as a Know Your Desi Ingredient—a spice native to India and widely used in Kerala and Odisha’s traditional cuisines.

Patrapoda Pitha, a traditional Odia rice cake usually made with rice, urad dal, coconut, and jaggery. The Pitha is slow-cooked to develop its signature smoky, caramelised base. Served here with chutney, to balance the sweet richness with a savoury edge.

Kakharu Phula Bhaja is a traditional Odia dish made with pumpkin flowers (kakharu phula in Odia). The blossoms are dipped in a light gram flour batter and shallow- or deep-fried until golden.

MEET YOUR HOST

Rishi Roy is an email marketer based out of Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He loves food and history, and how culture can be traced through gastronomy. He enjoys cooking, and thinks the joy of getting a compliment for his food is second to none. Rishi used to run a cloud kitchen but unfortunately had to pause it, so through The Locavore’s LFC he is slowly getting his passion for food back.

What does local mean to you?

The term local might have many connotations, but to me it means something that’s our own! You are fond of it, you wear it with a badge of pride, and you care enough to preserve and protect it.

What is your most enduring food memory?

The first time I cooked something, I was around 10 or 11 years old. As my parents were working, I used to be alone after school. It was Wednesday and I was craving my mom’s fish cakes. So without any knowledge of cooking or safety, I started making it. I knew I had to first cut vegetables, so I started chopping all the vegetables in the kitchen, many of which were not even needed. Then I realised there was no fish either. When my parents came back they laughed out loud, though later I got thrashed…But that’s a different story.

What is the most adventurous food you've tried and loved?

Dudh-Cola in Kolkata. It’s a bizarre combination but to my surprise, it somehow worked. And the red-ant chutney in Keonjhar district in Odisha. It looks unappetising but it tastes so good.

If I was a seasonal ingredient?

I would love to be Lychee. One, it rhymes with my name, and two, it represents me—hard and a little rough on the outside, but sweet and soft on the inside.

How do you see your Local Food Club flourishing?

Well Bhubaneswar is fairly new to LFC, but it has huge potential in terms of food and culture! A lot of our cuisine and folklore is unexplored. For now, we just need to make sure to bring in more people to engage with this community, because the set of people we have is amazing, and I look forward to being a part of this for a long time!