Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Celebrating culture

"Utsav" at The Park is about food, fashion, arts and crafts

PHOTO: M. VEDHAN

FROM THE ROYAL KITCHEN Master Chef Vivek Kumar with the Mewar thali

Spices and ghee. Ghee and spices. Mewar food focuses on the good things in life. After all, the kings of yore didn't worry too much about treadmills. So in keeping with the royal spirit, Vivek Kumar — Master Chef from Udaipur — cooked up a veritable desert storm at The Park for their "Bhojaya Utsav", a part of the ongoing "Utsav" at the hotel.

The menu featured typical Mewar food, with its distinctive flavours and textures. There was chicken cooked with sweet corn, a tender mutton curry simmering in tomato gravy and flaky fish wrapped in a green mint and coriander chutney.

But the highlights of the meal were in the vegetarian section: delicious gutte ka saag, crusty gram flour dumplings cooked in a spicy onion based gravy twanging with cumin and ginger and the thick golden-brown dal mewari. And of course there was rice, glistening pulao scattered generously with bursts of raisins and well-browned cashew nuts.

The meal was rounded off with the popular malai gewar, a spongy wedge made of refined flour and ghee, moistened with a splash of condensed milk and covered with the obligatory silver wrap.

Bhojaya Utsav is on for dinner at 601 until July 30. This festival, however, is not just about food.

There's art. The Forum Art Gallery brings together eight artists, who are part of Forum — Shalini Biswajit, Lakshmi Srinath, Tejo Menon, Benita Perciyal, Alagar Raja, S. Ganesh, Prabhakaran and Narayanan — for Kala Utsav. The artists will be creating work live at The Terrace everyday at 7.30 p.m. Zilpa Utsav, on at 601 till today, enables you to watch artisans make everything from thread bangles with spun silk to baskets.

The festival also included a classical contemporary dance performance by Narendra and Anusha, who combined modern dance techniques and martial arts. And well known fashion Designer Chaitanya Rao showcased his latest collection, fusing modern silhouettes with rich detailing that featured empire jackets, straight dresses and full skirts.

And to end it all, there's Gita Utsav today, at the lobby, a jugalbandhi by P. Ganesh on Chitravina, Sivaramakrishna on sitar and DJ VKa.

For more details call 42144000.

SHONALI MUTHALALY

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail