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Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Smorgasbord The festival offers authentic Chinese flavours

General Manager of the hotel Mohammad Shoeb announced launch of “Tuen Nu”, a Dragon Boat Food Festival, at the hotel’s Chinese restaurant on Thursday.

According to the legend, the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated in memory of Qu Yuan, a great Chinese poet and patriot of a kingdom that was located in the modern day Hunan province. A depressed Qu Yuan drowned himself in a river when he heard that the kingdom he belonged to was defeated in war. When people who loved him so much found out about his death they went in boats to find his body. They raced with each other to find the body of their hero. They also threw boiled rice in the water to lure the fish away from his body.

Over the years people began to observe Qu Yuan’s death anniversary, the fifth day of the fifth month, as the Dragon Boat Festival. It became a festival of food and racing on the long dragon boats that had dozens of paddlers rowing in unison. It is also said that the Dragon Boat Festival began as an occasion for driving off evil spirits and pestilence and for finding peace in one’s life. Assistant General Manager of the hotel Rajkumar said in addition to a luscious Chinese cuisine including savouries like flat rice noodles stir-fried with minced garlic, fresh prawns, bean sprouts, zong zi, dumplings made with bamboo leaves and sticky rice that are the traditional dragon boat festival food, a separate menu with dishes prepared in the way that was popular in the Hunan province would be made available to the gourmets of Chinese food during the festival. Xo chicken, drunken chicken, fragrant fish and duck prepared in the Hunan tradition will be available exclusively during the festival.

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