City loves its street food, and how!

Remember the Street Food Festival of India? At the same venue, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, numerous Delhi-NCR’s restaurants – small, big and huge – resurrected themselves under the white canopy to present the hugely awaited Grub Fest of the city.

With quite a few food festivals added to the city’s cultural calendar, one obviously wonders about the need for yet another one that tickled the pal­ate recently. The answer was provided by the staggering number of footfalls at the fest. The crowd was appro­ached mostly through social media; since there were hardly any hoardings or even signage outside the venue for directions.

Nevertheless, after going in concentric circles in the quest for Gate No 4 of the stadium (which was the designated entry), people from all age gro­ups reached to spend a ‘nice time’ with family and friends within an atmosphere replete with food, music and entertainment.

Acknowledging the absence of some of the major players in the city, visitors noticed quite a few new names spread across mostly at Lawn II. A deliberate decision of the organisers to pick these and provide them with a platform to showcase their delectable offerings.

The question here is, were the participants happy to be “given a platform” by the organisers? “The location of my stall wasn’t such that it would be visible to the people when they enter. In fact, the overall crowd was more in Lawn I where bigger brands were. So, the response was less than  what I had expected, but overall it was quite okay. Of course, we had to bear some losses in terms of operations,” says Anhad Sethi from Orange Chopsticks, Gurgaon.

The visitors, however, enjoyed every bit of what was available. A rush for the Thai delights at Dao in Lawn I made Metrolife asks the chef about the secret. “We have provided an option of three curries – red, green and panang in our combos. Since the combo comes with rice or noodles along with an appetiser, people are preferring it mo­­­re,” said masterchef Kanchit Vong vi Chai hinting at the minimised cost factor.

Some things are priceless, such as the chaat. As the popular foodie saying goes, ‘A gol gappa stall will never run in loss in Delhi’, Shiv Sagar too wasn’t into any losses. The stall offering hot favourites – Vada Pav, Dahi Vattata Puri and Bombay Sev Puri was flocked by both young and old for a perfect balance of the tangy tamarind chutney and crunchy sev. “Even for lunch and dinner people are opting for these snack items,” said Sanjay Topwal, general manager operations, with a little surprise in his voice.

At the same stall were available a few concoctions of fresh juices with fancy names such as orange and sweet lime in Ganga-Jamuna juice. In the scorching heat, post the unseasonal showers, many preferred these fresh juices and even ice creams.

Aakriti Gupta from Nice Cream went to the extent of introducing alcohol-laced ice creams at this fest. “We use vodka and red wine with our regular flavours such as
Nutella and Mango to create these alcoholic ice creams,” said Gupta whisking some liquor and freezing the ingredients with the help of liquid nitrogen.

“It is the sight of ice cream being made fresh and its taste that is attracting people,” she told Metrolife, in between attending to the huge line of people who had converged
to the stall for a dollop of the ice creams.

At the end of Lawn II was a market where innovative bakery products were on sale. There were two food trucks at the venue too but the live performances in music, stand-up comedy and dance recitals garnered more interest.

Amidst the upbeat music, compiled especially for the event, one of the four organisers, Mani Singh Cheema said, “I don’t call myself a foodie but we were inspired by the food festival in London. I want to make this festival as big as the food festivals that take place in Singapore, Dubai and other countries. After Delhi we are headed to Bangalore but we want to take it abroad as well.”

Will people abroad like to chow down Thai, European and American food instead of true Indian cuisine? Only time will tell.