Food across the Borders – Food fest @ Uday Samudra, Kovalam

The four-day ‘Rang de Basanthi’ food festival which started on Nov 11^th and concludes on 14^th offers some of the best cuisines from our neighbouring countries especially those who share their international border with us. This is an excellent opportunity for the foodies in the capital city to check out some mouth-watering delicacies from different cuisines. There are dishes from Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Sri Lanka to give that international flavour while that from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab gives the local taste. 

On Day 1 the food offered at the fest had a good mix of Veg and Non-veg options from the bordering countries. The buffet started with the soup section which had – Chinese Egg Drop Soup and Nepalese  Kwati Soup – basically mixed soup of 7 varieties of Lentils.

The main course had

Machher Jhol from Bangladesh – The smell and flavour of ‘Panch Foron’ – the 5 spice mix was very evident and visible, but it did lack the punch of ‘mustard oil’ 

Nihari (Mutton) from Pakistan - NIhari is also considered to be the national dish of Pakistan. A delicious mix of ‘Lahori’ spices, Nihari Gosht has rich spices and herbs like cardamom, cinnamon, chillies,

bay leaves, nutmeg mixed with yoghurt. This preparation also had big chunks of potatoes, perfect dish to have with Tandoori Roti or Tava Parantha. 

Ceylon Crab curry from Srilanka – Coconut gravy based curry, not too spicy, very balanced flavours which enhanced the taste of meaty, juicy crabs was perfect with plain rice / Appams. Also Green Mango curry again coconut milk based gravy was tangy and not too spicy which went well with Red Bhutanese rice. 

Jasha Maroo – Bhutanese spicy chicken stew, but with very little gravy – with fresh garlic, ginger, shallots was another must-try dish. Also from Bhutan was Ema Datshi – their signature dish with hot chillies served with Bhutanese red rice. 

Veg Momos with hot fresh red chilli sauce and Aalu Dum was 2 vegetarian dishes from Nepal and Spicy Hot Noodles – schezwan

style, Stir-fried Tofu and Orange Honey Chicken which did lack the flavour of honey or orange, but as a side dish were variety dishes from China. 

Dal Makhani (Black gram and Black Bean) and Butter chicken were 2 dishes from Punjab.

In the dessert setion, we had Set Roti basically made of rice dough, Karachi Halwa – which basically looks like Kerala Kozhikodan Halwa, Dates Pancake (Chinese) , Halwa Puri – very similar to Khujiya were some of the border-specific sweets along with other sweet dishes on offer. Other than these we also had live counters for Chaat, Rotis, appams and another live station for Tea and coffee from the neighbouring countries. For me, it was first time getting a chance of tasting cuisines from all these countries and I made the best of it .:)