The flavour of pachchi pulusu, sakinalu, golichina mamsam , polelu, and other mouth watering dishes is missing as the State gets ready to celebrate the fourth Telangana Formation Day on June 2. Unlike earlier years when there was big splash about regional food with a number of upscale and medium sized hotels dishing out Telangana delicacies, this year, very few hotels have announced such food fests.
“We are planning a Telangana Food Festival on three days from June 1 to 3 at People’s Plaza. We have a line-up of about 20 hotels that are going to participate in that festival. We have asked select hotels to organise Telangana food festival events coinciding with the State formation day,” said an official of Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation (TSTDC).
Interestingly, the cuisine was one of the cultural facets that was used during the struggle for creation of the State. “The visibility of Telangana food has definitely gone up, thanks to the regular Telangana Food Festivals organised by government at People’s Plaza and the fact that all hotels serve Telangana food during the State formation week. We also have several restaurants serving it as part of their menu and a few speciality restaurants like T Grill and Palamuru Grill are known for Telangana cuisine,” said R. Ravikanth Reddy, an entrepreneur and a foodie.
In Hyderabad, only one hotel has been first off the blocks, with Cayenne, a restaurant in Mercure-KCP, hosting a ‘Taste of Telangana’ food festival till June 3.
“We want to put Telangana cuisine on a firm footing by setting up permanent counters that will cater to the demand at Paryatak Bhavan in Somajiguda and in Taramati Baradari through the year for both localites and visitors,” informed a TSTDC official.
Personal initiative
“We have had no orders for organising food festivals. For the last three years, our association members got orders from the government to organise events to highlight Telangana food festivals. But this year, some of the association members are doing it on their own,” said Venkat Reddy of Telangana State Hotels Association.
