A residential district southwest of the city centre, built in the 1950s as a planned neighbourhood for Dhaka's professional class, now the most desirable address in the city for restaurants, cafes, and cultural life. Dhanmondi is where you find the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, the Dhanmondi Lake (a long, narrow artificial lake ringed with walking paths and food stalls), and a concentration of good restaurants and coffee shops that makes it the best area for an afternoon of eating and wandering.
The neighbourhood has the best street food scene in central Dhaka — particularly along the roads around Dhanmondi 27 and Road 2 — and is where much of the city's literary and artistic culture is centred. Bookshops, galleries, and independent cafes fill the ground floors of apartment buildings. Less chaotic than old Dhaka, more interesting than Gulshan.