This food festival in Vizag treats you to delectable flavours of Tamil cuisine

The Sattvik Food Festival at Novotel Visakhapatnam Varun Beach has been treating foodies in Vizag to a delectable spread of traditional Tamil cuisine. Flagged off on 17 October, the spread, at the nine-day fest, has been curated by the Hotel’s Executive Chef Krishna Kumar and Culinary Expert and Sattvik Food Consultant, Gita Hari. Offering a range of dishes representative of the South Indian state, the food festival had us hooked on our recent visit.

Getting us off the mark at the food festival was the chilled Neer More- a refreshing serving of buttermilk mildly spiced with just the right amounts of ginger, green chillies, and curry leaves. The second welcome drink was a glass of cool jaggery water, better known as the good-old Panagam. The Channa Sundal salad, which had boiled chickpeas dressed beautifully in grated coconut and green chillies, followed soon to leave us craving for more. Summing up the appetizing honours was a bowl of Thakali Rasam- a local tomato flavoured tamarind broth soup- that got our digestive juices flowing with its strong flavours.

Mixed Vegetable Pakodas and fluffy little Mor Appams, accompanied with a freshly made coconut chutney, filled our platter next as the South Indian foodie within us was well and truly awakened. Moving on, the main course, which can be fetched in unlimited quantities, got rolling with soft appams served with two side dishes. The first side, called Mango Pulisery, was a mango-based gravy with sweet undertones and had come as the signature dish of the platter. The second one was a simple Amma’s Potato Curry and quite easily turned out to be our favourite between the two. This Amma’s special even had us sorted for the gentle coconut rice that wooed us with all its simplicity. Signing off the delicious Sattvik meal on a sweet note was our guilty indulgence into the rich Sarkarai Pongal, which came loaded with the goodness of ghee, jaggery and dry fruits.

During the course of the nine-day food festival, the restaurant will be serving guests with three different menus-based on a rotation policy. While we were treated to the first menu, the other two also feature interesting dishes such as Pidi Koyakattai, Kosmalli, Avial, Poriyal, Elai Adai, Paruppu Pradhaman and more. So head to the Sattvik Food Festival at Zaffran, Novotel Visakhapatnam Varun Beach, and relish the healthy Tamil Brahmin gastronomy.