Michelle Loubon

New Del­hi chefs Mukesh Ku­mar and Ar­jun spent nine hours prepar­ing de­li­cious north and south In­di­an cui­sine for the pre­miere of the In­di­an Food Fes­ti­val, A Taste of In­dia, at the Pool Ter­race Gar­den Restau­rant, Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, St Ann's, last Thurs­day. Among those savour­ing the dish­es were Leroy Browne, act­ing gen­er­al man­ag­er of Hilton, sales and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Dar­lene Mc­Don­ald, In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Malay Mishra and Min­is­ter of Trade Vas­ant Bharath.

Af­ter the for­mal­i­ties and din­ner, the chefs came in for ku­dos from Browne. He said: "When you work in food all the time, there is not much that is left to im­press you. But the food was amaz­ing. I?en­joyed the gar­lic naan ( a type of bread). The mu­sic and dance were ex­cel­lent. A lot of peo­ple here love good food. In­dia is cel­e­brat­ing its In­de­pen­dence. T&T?is cel­e­brat­ing its 50th an­niver­sary."

De­scrib­ing the chefs as "hum­ble, hard-work­ing men," he said: "We went to a func­tion by the High Com­mis­sion­er (Mishra). All they could talk about was get­ting start­ed on the cook­ing. They were ea­ger to get to work. They are pas­sion­ate about their cook­ing." Hilton's ex­ec­u­tive chef Is­rael Calderon com­pli­ment­ed the chefs for their su­perb culi­nary skills and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. He said:?"Our chefs pre­pared about 60 dish­es. I?found it was a plea­sure work­ing with them. They are bas­ing it on the cui­sine of north and south In­dia which is multi­na­tion­al. It has a lot of items. It is great food."

Calderon added:?"My ex­pec­ta­tion is a lot of peo­ple would come out. We are hop­ing to have more culi­nary events like Ok­to­ber­fest." Both chefs said they were vis­it­ing Trinidad for the first time. Im­me­di­ate­ly, they formed favourable im­pres­sions of the peo­ple and coun­try.

They have worked in South Amer­i­can coun­tries like Ar­genti­na and Mex­i­co. Ku­mar, an em­ploy­ee at Ho­tel Sam­rat, New Del­hi, said they used blend of fresh in­gre­di­ents and spices. Fresh­ly cooked naan and dosa (ro­tis with pota­to fill­ings) sta­tions were set up. He ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the sup­port of Calderon and Hilton staff.