Vindhyas Goes Bangla
EH&C Staff - Mumbai

Vindhyas, the Indian specialty restaurant at The Orchid-An Ecotel Hotel, (near Mumbai domestic airport) has organised a 10-day Bangla Food Festival. ‘Sonar Bangla,’ commencing from September 19th will lay out a spread of typical Bengali cuisine.

Bengalis love for fish is legendary and more than four types of fish preparations will be served during the festival including sorse macch (steamed fish), maccher jhol (fish with watery curry) and bhaja macch (fried fish with haldi, mirchi and dash of lime).

Apart from sweets like misti doi, sandesh, ras malai, the festival will also showcase the vegetarian fare of Bangla cuisine, especially the array of chutneys like pineapple, raw pappaya (called plastic chutney), apple, baigan etc.

“Chutneys are an important part of the Bengali meal and at least six different types of chutneys are a norm. Chutneys are like breaks after the main course and the deserts, just like the vegetarian dishes, which are mainly starters to open up the palette for the main course of fish,” explained Sudhir Pai, executive chef of the hotel. According to Pai, the menu for the festival was created after extensive research and chef Balasubramaniyam was specially sent to Kolkota for the same. Food festivals are an integral part of the promotion campaign of Vindhyas, which has an elaborate menu comprising of 171 vegetarian and non-vegetarian items from nine different states of India.

“Every two months we organise a food festival of a particular state and the exercise has definitely helped in increasing the popularity and revenue of the restaurant,” stated Gaurav Magoo, assistant restaurant manager.