A Thai Food Festival In Town

There's a glut of food festivals in Bangalore these days - the Food Lovers festival, which is to be followed by the Citibank food festival and, in addition, some miscellaneous events scattered around town.  I'm sure that Holi and Easter will also bring some special menus.

The food festival I went to last night, however, is something I found quite enjoyable and so I'm writing to let readers know that it's on until the 31st of March.  This is a Thai food festival at the Raj Pavilion, Windsor Manor.  They have a visiting chef from Thailand, who is making Thai food for their dinner buffet (the buffet also retains some of their usual Indian and Western fare).

Not many five star hotels offer buffet food festivals these days hence I particularly look out for the few that come my way.  Windsor Manor, a relic of the Raj, is a very elegant and peaceful place to dine.  For these reasons, I decided to visit there last night, overlooking the cheaper and more attractive sounding food deals that are going around.

The Thai food menu was thoughtfully planned - there was a range of vegetables and meats (lots of seafood, which I particularly like) cooked in different ways. The only thing noticeably absent were Thai desserts.

The dinner began with a glass of house wine (on the house!) and a couple of interesting starters.

There was a summery, light hot and sour broth into which one could add all kinds of toppings, sprinkle some coriander leaves, squeeze a little lemon - and make one's own soup!

Laid out in a row, in gleaming dishes, were an assortment of vegetables cooked in various ways - with a light lime and pepper sauce, with chillies, with large, dark mushrooms and black beans, with slivers of fried garlic (almost buttery).  There was shrimp fried rice and stir fried flat rice noodles.  There was steamed fish served with thinly sliced carrots, fiery giant prawns with red chillies, chicken in a mild yellow curry and a hot prawn salad with bits of onion, coriander leaves, chillies and peanuts.  (Of course, the selection changes everyday).

I tried it all!!  Washed it down with cupfuls of fragrant jasmine tea and called it a day.
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