Date: 20-30 April 2019
Venue: Garden Inn Hilton Gurugram

After the Marwari Thali, there is one more post about food from an exotic destination. Uttarakhand is among the most popular holiday destinations from Delhi NCR. Yet we know pretty little about the food here. To make amendments we visited “Exotic Uttarakhand”, the Uttarakhand Food Festival at Glasshouse, Hilton Garden Inn, Gurgaon. The festival is happening between 20^th – 30^th April, 2019.

The fare at Uttarakhand Food Festival was a fusion of two styles from that state – Garhwali and Kumaoni cuisine. The dishes in the spread comprised a host of pulses, vegetables, some meat and some cool seasoning. Like hemp or bhang. Seeds from this happy shrub are used extensively in Uttarakhand food. They had a relish (chutney) made of bhang seeds but no – we did not feel heady after having that. In fact, their fusion version of paneer tikka was also marinated with a paste that contained bhang seeds. We were totally thrilled. Coming to vegetables, we had already tasted the extensive use of radishes when we tried Kumaoni cuisine during our stay at Aahana, Jim Corbett. Radish was a common component in the salads and main courses dishes at this festival as well. The wide use of radish gave a strong fresh flavour to the specific dishes. One a separate note, a must try dish is Bhatt ki Churkani. It is a black bean dish that we had tried at Café Lota. We loved it then and we loved it now too. We also liked Pahadi Meat that went very well with Mandwa Roti – a fibre rich bread made of Ragi or millet flour.

Among the desserts we were thrilled to find our favourite Bal Mithai. We were introduced to this sweet during our trip to kausani and have always looked it up whenever we traveling to Uttarakhand. We also loved Burash Ki Kheer that was on the menu. It was a moderately sweet milk pudding made with the fragrant burash or rhododendron flowers.

Life in mountains is hard and simple. The pahadi fare at Uttarakhand Food Festival is reflective of that. Sitting in Delhi NCR, the cuisine is familiar to what we have – yet rustic with some unique flavours that make all the difference. When we had it at a 5 – star café, with Kumaoni music playing in the background, we could not but love the total experience. It was like a luxury gastro-trip and any trip is a Fun-Do. We are happy to have tasted Exotic Uttarakhand – the foodie way – at Hilton Garden Inn.