Tipu Rahman & Bithi Begum

A Bangladeshi couple bring their fish-rich native cuisine to Miami Renaisa means innovation in Banglish, the English-infused slang language of Bangladesh, and Renaisa Indian Cuisine is something new indeed in South Florida. You can try Indian favorites like chicken tandoori and Bangladeshi specialties like grilled fish bhorta in the small, cottage-like restaurant overlooking a canal just off Biscayne Boulevard in Northeast Miami. You won’t see a flotilla of pinish (Bangladeshi sailboats) floating by, but motor boats might whiz past as you dine. Owner A.K.M. “Tipu” Rahman has spent a year slowly renovating, opening up and lightening the Bimini Grill. He and his wife, Mahmuda “Bithi” Begum. grew up in Dhaka, the capital of the small country known as East Pakistan from the partition of India and East Bengal in 1947 until Bangladeshi independence in 1971. Rahman was born in Charpala, a small fishing village in the rich alluvial delta where several rivers flow into the Bay of Bangal. He studied business while his wife got a culinary degree in Chinese cooking (every town in Bangladesh has a Chinese restaurant). In 1994 the couple visited Bithi’s brother South Florida, liked the warm weather and stayed, running a catering business in Boca Raton until their move to Miami a year ago.

South Florida is home to more then 12,000 Bangladeshi, and the couple got to know many of them by catering milads, Muslim religious celebrations. They still cater, but from the restaurant, and customers now come to pick up the food. There is an old Bengali proverb, “Machhe bhate Bengali,” meaning “rice and fish equal Bangladesh.” The cuisine revolves around rice and freshwater fish from the serpentine river that crosshatch the country,Rahman imports flash-frozen fish from Bangladesh, so you can taste the prized elish, a silvery type of shad also known as hilsa. The sweet-tasting fish with tiny bones is cut into pieces, marinated in garlicginger paste with a little oil, salt and green chile, fried and layered with buttered rice and baked to make elish pulao. (All food is cooked to order; allow at least an hour for this dish, which serves two.)

Another exotic dish, the fish bhorta, is an appetizer salad made from fried and flaked choli (a river fish) mixed with onions, smoky roasted dried red chile bits and chopped cilantro, served with plain rice. The grilled tomato bhorta is also good with rice or garlic naan from the clay tandoor oven. Local seafood shows up in coconut shrimp in a creamy, not-too-spicy sauce, spicier shrimp masala and grilled snapper or yellowtail.

Also on the menu are ground beef kofta kebabs blasted in the tandoor, paya (beef shanks cooked overnight with spices). Lamb kebabs, goat braised in yogurt and the new national dish of England, chicken tikka masala (grilled breast bits in a spicy sauce).

The house specialty is biryani, fragrant basmati rice layerd with lamb, chicken, shrimp or mixed vegetables. Dal makani (creamy yellow lentils), potato-stuffed samosas, vegetable korma in yogurt sauce and palak paeer (pureed spinach with homemade cheese) will satisfy vegetarians.

Sweet milky cha (tea) makes a good ending with paish (rice pudding). Khub moja ! (Very tasty indeed!).