Despite our ardent and loyal love for Biryani and all things Hyderabadi spices, the city is known for welcoming and exploring different cuisines from all around the globe. In the past couple of years, the city has been growing in terms of widening its tastes, preferences and likes, and capitalising on this, Novotel Hyderabad Airport, Shamshabad, launched its much-awaited Pan-Asian Food Festival.
The ongoing fest promises a wide variety of authentic Asian cuisine from all over the rich continent — so be sure to catch even the not-so-popular dishes! The restaurant, which had recently renovated its interiors, menu and more, is welcoming foodies with a whole new concept. As soon as you enter the restaurant, you are sure to be spoilt for choice from the myriad options available. The decision to choose from the many counters from different countries will take up most of your time. The place also has many options to choose from the Indian cuisine as well.
Explaining the concept behind the food festival, chef Varun Movva, executive chef at Novotel, says, “We had been planning for a new food exchange concept that includes both local (North and South India) and global cuisines too - what better than a pan-Asia food fest! This is the first time Novotel has dedicated two kitchens for a food-fest - local and global. We have been making Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, etc. — something that most restaurants that claim to be Asian, don’t serve. Our chef has flown down all the way from Japan to help us curate the perfect menu.”
As we sat down to try out some amazing pan Asian dishes, chef Rajeev Nayan, the executive sous chef who was also involved in the curating of the menu, recommended some of the best and most popular favourites on the menu. We started off with the Ohitashi, which is a spinach-based salad that had a burst of flavours in the mouth. If only we knew what just a slice of onion and a spinach leaf rolled and dipped in a sauce can do — the smokey flavour just stuck on. The cucumber and crab salad was another hit. Starters ranged from sweet potato with galangal and kafir lime, prawns, lamb, to three treasure vegetables, soy glazed chicken dumplings, Thai spice-infused cheese chicken and egg, stuffed chicken roll with hunan sauce, and stir fry mutton in oyster sauce, all of which were worth every bite!
For the main course, we had a scrumptious filling of Chicken bak kut teh and Nasi goreng, which was mixed vegetable rice and chicken. Fried octopus too was a pleasant surprise that went perfect with the sauce that accompanied it. Of their choicest mocktails, the Yalla Habibi is a must-try.
“I have been in Japan for over seven years now and am quite familiar with the dishes there. We wanted to keep this festival as authentic as possible and so brought in the maximum number of dishes from Thai, Chinese, Mediterranean and Indonesian cuisines,” chef Rajeev tells CE.