Having burnt its hands with some bad experiences last year, the National Street Food Festival promises to serve its best this time.
The four-day fest, which begins at its usual venue – Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium – on Thursday will be integrated by chef Sanjeev Kapoor. It will have 800 stalls offering over 600 varieties of food and snacks from across the country, including the newly-born State of Telangana. Shankar, a chicken seller from Telangana, along with 20 vendors will be offering vegetarian and non-vegetation food.
Some of the popular street food on offer will include Banaras’ Lal petha and kachodi , tamatar chat, lehsun ki kheer from Lucknow, Awadhi chicken and special Telangana dosa, besides fusion deserts like double ka meetha with Biryani, mawa jalebi from Madhya Pradesh, Kerala’s kheer and pallapan – a special chapati.
This time, the organisers – The National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) – claim to have made elaborate seating arrangements for a fine dining experience and made available proper parking facilities to the visitors.
Other events are also being organised to make the festival more lively. It includes awards in categories of best hygiene, best presentation, best healthy food and best team work, apart from live cooking demonstrations.
Another major highlight is participation of 150 women cooks from acrros the country.
There would be two popular awards – the best male cook and female cook. The organisers also plan to send five best vendors to participate in the Singapore National Street Food Festival, which is held in April annually.
A team of students from Food Technology Institute, Delhi, will “monitor and supervise” the cooking process.
NASVI national coordinator Arvind Singh assures everyone that “the food will be reasonably priced, ranging between Rs.10 to 100”.
