A 10-day Hyderabadi Food Festival is taking place from May 24 at Fairfield by Marriott, Kathmandu.
An inaugural and cultural function was held at the hotel premises on Thursday.
The inauguration ceremony also included two performances – a tabla recital and a dance – by the students and artists of The Indian Cultural Center (now called Swami Vivekanand Cultural Center). Jagannath Dhaugoda, a participant in the table recital and a tabla student at the Center as well as Tribhuvan University shed some light on the same: the composition, composed by Pandit Samir Dey, included ‘Kayda’ and ‘Rela.’
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“We added a Nepali flavor to it by adding the Madal,” said Dhaugoda. The composition was essentially a fusion as it also included djembe which is a percussion instrument originating from West Africa. There were a total of ten students who performed with the eldest of the lot being Dhaugoda at 27 years of age and the youngest being Sankalp Verma at 15.
Chef Deepak Thapa, the man behind the scenes, a resident chef at the hotel leads the culinary team. Thapa worked in Hyderabad for nearly ten years first at a bakery and then at Hyderabad Marriott Hotel & Convention Center.
Having mastered in Andhra, Telagu and Hyderabadi cuisines, he delegates the same here. The festival features both Nizaami and Nawabi cuisine where, Chef Thapa explained, the former is rich in spice quotient and the latter in flavor. The chef’s top recommendations are ‘Nalli Nihaari’ and ‘Dum-Ka-Murgh’ from the non-vegetarian variety and the ‘Nizaami Mixed Sabzi,’ in the vegetarian section.
Gaurav Agrawal, managing director of Fairfield by Marriott, Kathmandu described the power of food as a medium of connecting and uniting people. “When people travel they like to experience food from different cultures,” he said.
Although the festival features Hyderabadi, and not Nepali food, he maintained that food from neighboring countries would be of interest to travelers. However, he claimed that the festival targets locals over travelers to bring to them not just the platter but a feel of the place itself. In this regard, the setting of the festival seems to have really brought Hyderabad to the Nepali soil.
The service staff can also be seen in traditional Hyderabadi attire adding to the ambience of the event. The buffet, priced at Rs 1999 (including taxes) per person, offers a huge variety of authentic Hyderabadi cuisine along with servings of unlimited drinks from 6:30pm till 10:30pm.
