Food festival fails to whet visitors’ appetite

Food festival fails to whet visitors’ appetite
Tuesday, January 24, 2014 12:43:9 IST

Not too many takers at venue where even quite a participants did not show up..
The Mumbai Festival which started since about 10 days ago and which goes on till the last week of the month, has little celebration. The entire festival seems to have fizzled out almost as soon as it started. This year there’s a fewer number of foreign visitors to the festival and lesser publicity within the city.
The few visitors to the Mumbai Festival – Mumbaikars, local tourists and foreigners, are already upset because some of the programmes were called off at the last minute. Like the ‘night flea market’, the ‘folk dance show’ at the Gateway of India or the participants who backed out of the Food Festival at Fort.  This year, the Mumbai Festival’s Food Festival was set up around the NGMA building at Fort, unlike last year when the food stalls were set up on the Museum side of the road. The new location and more number of stalls were supposed to work in favour of the food festival. But when the stalls were put up, many participants didn’t show up. Eventually the organisers offered the stalls for non-food items, despite which there are a few empty slots.
The stalls begin with a cold drink counter by Coca Cola, one of the sponsors of the festival, “There’s not much crowd,” complains the vendor, “But the timing is good. We are open from noon to almost 11 pm. There were enough people over the weekend.”
Another stall, Khoob Khao, of oil-free snacks and health food also isn’t drawing good response. “The first few days we had some foreigners coming but now there’s hardly any crowd,” says the stall manager, Jeetendra Singh, who was running the stall last year, too.
“This year isn’t as good as the last. I guess this time there wasn’t proper publicity of the festival. There have been no VIP guests visiting us. Except for Nita Ambani who inaugurated it.”
Jeetendra believes that the NGMA locality suits them fine, “These are health products, a bit on the expensive side compared to regular fried snacks. So South Mumbai is a proper place for it. I guess the suburbs will have an even lesser crowd.” Among the row of stalls around NGMA, most occupied, some standing empty, are handloom and handicraft stalls that should appeal to the foreigners. “This is our first year at the Mumbai festival. We weren’t here when the festival started because this was expected to be a whole lane of food stalls. But since some of the stalls were lying empty, the organisers allowed us to rent it,” reveals Aruna Mane, owner of Colaba’s Jai Mata Di Collection of handlooms and garments and WTC’s Trimurti of handicrafts. Aruna is happy with the response she has received from the public so she has already decided to come again next year.
The ‘tattoo and painting’ stall in the middle of the row was completely empty no artistes so no customers. Other than that, the popcorn and the ‘name on rice’ hardly had any takers. The usual Baskin Robbins’ and Wraps & Rolls stalls are doing well with the passers-by.
“Not many people come visiting the food festival. It is just Mumbai people passing by and stopping for a snack,” explains Ashutosh Pandey, who is running the Wraps & Rolls stall. “This year there aren’t as many foreigners as during previous years. It is more of the local tourists and city people.”
But if you are at the Food Festival, the must-visit stalls are Laxman Caterers and Kutumsakhi. The former serves chaats, grilled sandwiches and other snacks – all items are Rs. 10 per plate. Whatever little crowd the festival has, it is all crowded around here.
The other stall, Kutumsakhi by Mrs. Navalkar’s women’s NGO is doing great business selling Maharashtrian food, “People love this food. We have foreigners and locals coming for Vada Pav, Kothimbir Vada and other goodies,” says Joshna Shilar, managing the stall.