Food festival fails to whet visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 appetite
\nTuesday, January 24, 2016 12:43:9 IST<\/p>\n
Not too many takers at venue where even quite a participants did not show up..
\nThe 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fewer number of foreign visitors to the festival and lesser publicity within the city.
\nThe 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnight flea market\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfolk dance show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 at the Gateway of India or the participants who backed out of the Food Festival at Fort.\u00c2\u00a0 This year, the Mumbai Festival\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show up. Eventually the organisers offered the stalls for non-food items, despite which there are a few empty slots.
\nThe stalls begin with a cold drink counter by Coca Cola, one of the sponsors of the festival, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much crowd,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d complains the vendor, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But the timing is good. We are open from noon to almost 11 pm. There were enough people over the weekend.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAnother stall, Khoob Khao, of oil-free snacks and health food also isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drawing good response. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The first few days we had some foreigners coming but now there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hardly any crowd,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says the stall manager, Jeetendra Singh, who was running the stall last year, too.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This year isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as good as the last. I guess this time there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t proper publicity of the festival. There have been no VIP guests visiting us. Except for Nita Ambani who inaugurated it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nJeetendra believes that the NGMA locality suits them fine, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153These 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.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Among the row of stalls around NGMA, most occupied, some standing empty, are handloom and handicraft stalls that should appeal to the foreigners. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is our first year at the Mumbai festival. We weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reveals Aruna Mane, owner of Colaba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jai Mata Di Collection of handlooms and garments and WTC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.
\nThe \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctattoo and painting\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 stall in the middle of the row was completely empty\u00c2\u00a0no artistes so no customers. Other than that, the popcorn and the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcname on rice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hardly had any takers. The usual Baskin Robbins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and Wraps & Rolls stalls are doing well with the passers-by.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not many people come visiting the food festival. It is just Mumbai people passing by and stopping for a snack,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explains Ashutosh Pandey, who is running the Wraps & Rolls stall. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This year there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as many foreigners as during previous years. It is more of the local tourists and city people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nBut 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.
\nThe other stall, Kutumsakhi by Mrs. Navalkar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NGO is doing great business selling Maharashtrian food, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153People love this food. We have foreigners and locals coming for Vada Pav, Kothimbir Vada and other goodies,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Joshna Shilar, managing the stall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Food festival fails to whet visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 appetite Tuesday, January 24, 2016 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indonesia-handicraft.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}