Western Odisha cooking is plainer and less varied than the coastal cuisine of Bhubaneswar and Puri, but it is satisfying and cheap. Rice is the foundation of every meal: it arrives in generous mounds alongside dal, a simple tarkari (vegetable curry), and often a piece of fish — rohu or catla from the Mahanadi, fried in mustard oil or simmered in a thin, sharp gravy soured with tamarind or tomato. Mustard oil is the cooking fat of choice throughout Odisha, and its pungency underlies almost everything.
The defining dish is dalma: lentils cooked with raw papaya, raw banana, yam, or whatever vegetables are in season, and finished with a tarka of pancha phutana (a five-spice blend of mustard, fenugreek, fennel, cumin, and nigella) plus dried red chilli. It is made at home and served at temples as prasad; in restaurants it appears as part of the standard thali. Pakhala — fermented cooked rice eaten cold with water, salt, and a little fried onion — is summer food, cooling and oddly refreshing in the heat.
For sweets, the mithai shops around the main market are the places to go. Rasagolla (soft cottage-cheese balls in light syrup), khaja (flaky, syrup-soaked layered pastry associated with the Jagannath temple tradition), and chhena poda are the ones to look for. The sweets are best in the morning, made fresh for the day's trade.