Home ›› 04 Apr 2022 ›› Front
At the onset of the holy month of Ramadan, the Iftar market across the capital wore a festive mood in every corner of the city as makeshift stall owners and street vendors were selling different delicious food items to cater to fasters.
City dwellers who kept fasting enthusiastically enjoyed these traditional Iftar items on the first day of Ramadan with extra fervour as the Covid-10 pandemic slowly faded away after two years of struggle.
While visiting different areas of the city, including Mirpur, Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Kawran Bazar, Rampura, Chawk Bazar and Gulistan, The Business Post found traders were selling a variety of Bengali snacks and delicacies.
Crowd-favourite Iftar items such as beguni (fried eggplant fritters), piaju (onion lentil fritter), alur chop (potato fritters), numerous varieties of meat and fish kebabs, mutton and chicken cutlet, minced beaf roll, parata, haleem, Bengali beverages like matha, lacchi, labang and different sweet items were high in sales on Sunday.
On these stalls, each kilogramme of Jilapi was selling for Tk 140 to Tk 260, depending on the size, quality and materials used to make the sweet snack. Haleem was selling for Tk 100 to
Tk 300 per bowl at the makeshift street shops and Tk 150 to Tk 800 per serving at different restaurants across the capital. Fried vegetable items like beguni, piaju, alur chop were selling for Tk 5 to Tk 15. Various Bengali cakes made with chicken, paneer, and vegetables were selling for Tk 10 to Tk 50. Each kg of Bundia was selling for Tk 150 to Tk 200, nimki for Tk 10 to Tk 20 per piece and puffed rice, a Bengali Iftar staple was selling for Tk 60 to Tk 70 per packet of medium size.
Different types of fruits, such as dates, pineapple, banana, watermelon, apple, guava, grapes, oranges etc, were also high in demand with more than their regular prices.
Traders said they were hoping for a good sale this year throughout the month to recoup the losses they had inflicted in the last two years amid the pandemic. Fasting customers flocking to these stalls said that the prices of these items are slightly higher than they expected.
Akhtar Hossain, owner of a makeshift stall in the Mirpur-1 area, told The Business Post, “We are getting positive responses from the consumers on the first day of Ramadan. We are offering some crowd-favourite items such as leg roast, special tehari, jilapi, fried chicken, minced beef samosa, beef stick, chicken stick and faluda (sweet fruit salad) to our consumers.”
Like, Akhtar, many traders are also expecting better sales this year as many of them could not set up stalls during the month of Ramadan in the last two years due to Covid-19 induced lockdown.
Rafiqul Alam, a customer in the Tejgaon area, said that he likes to buy iftar items from the makeshift stalls, as such varied items cannot be easily made at his house. “These taste good, and I, along with my whole family, can enjoy our Iftar together without taking much hassle to cook these items at home,” Rafiqul said.
While visiting several grocery stores and fruit shops across the capital on Sunday, The Business Post found that a variety of imported dates, including Amber, Jordan, Tunisian, Sukkari, Kalmi, Maryam, Kalmi, Zahidi, Sukkari were high in demand among the consumers. The prices of the dates range from Tk 100 to Tk 1,500 per kg, depending on their qualities.
