Eating out in a fancy restaurant may seem a bit routine and even monotonous depending on your frequency to dine out. So how about being adventurous and trying diverse delicacies out in the open. To give you an idea of the flavour , a celebrity chef prepares an exotic dish – which you have either watched on a cookery show or read in a newspaper – right in front of your eyes. All those searching for these thrills can head to the New Delhi Palate Festival, a three-day event being held at Nehru Park.
For the first time, Chef Vicky Ratnani is participating in this festival and he is mighty excited about it. He has a plan to spring a surprise on foodies by giving them a demonstration of two varied dishes which have international flavour yet different methodologies of cooking.
“Generally, a lot of people go in for vegetarian stuff at outdoor eating out events. So I am going to present wild mushroom pate which is a tasty dish and ideally suited to be cooked and eaten outdoors. People would get a taste of international flavour and learn the art of preparing it. What works in the favour of mushrooms is that they can be cooked easily, are inexpensive and easily available in markets. And they are great meat alternatives,” says Vicky.
Normally this dish is eaten with liver and chicken but the chef decided to give a twist to it. “It can easily be converted into non vegetarian dish.”
The second dish is blackened cottage cheese steak, whose nomenclature makes it seem distant but is closer home in taste. “It is a paneer marinated with Indian and imported spices. It is combination of spices. I would be giving a demo of these two dishes.”
Zorawar Kalra of Farzi Cafe has observed that the Indian cuisine features at the bottom of the pyramid in restaurants so he wants visitors to experience tandoori wild mushrooms, tandoori soy chops, smoked bacon and pyaaz ki kachori; mutton boti tacos. For those with sweet tooth can dig into fresh fruits and dark chocolate and panjiri tart dishes.
Aditi Kapoor, co-founder and director, Palate Fest Private Limited, says the idea is to give the festival a pan-Indian identity. “We have hosted it in Goa and would be heading to Chandigarh.”
The food festival has put up 50 stalls by the leading names in the culinary space like Royal China, Jamie’s Italian, Mistral, Wendy’s, Bombay Bakery (Rustoms), Red Hot Cafe, Big Fat Sandwich and Tikka Town.
