[venueheader]

Potbelly Rooftop Cafe goes into the little known details of delicious Bihari cuisine.

 Potbelly’s Bihari Food Festival

The Silbatta Chronicles

Potbelly Rooftop Cafe, Shahpur Jat’s unique place focussing on Bihari cuisine has announced a Bihari food festival for it’s patrons which dig out little known treasures from Bihar’s food history.

Silbatta, the humble instrument of taste, has a peculiar way of working its way through Bihari food, among other regions of India, essential as it is in traditional methods of cooking in several parts of India. A slab of stone which comes with another ovular stone to crush things with, silbatta is used for crushing herbs, seeds and other ingredients of taste into a fine jus which a clinical mixer grinder can never replicate to extract flavours key to the local cuisine. Potbelly Rooftop Cafe in Delhi keeps details such as these in mind, when it serves up Bihar’s treasury of a varied cuisine in the cosmopolitan lives of Delhi’s residents. Before the cafe came into being, probably one thing that Delhi residents did not associate with Bihar was its food. But this touristy cafe tucked away on the fourth floor of an equally whimsical Shahpur Jat is one of the more ingenious places around town, serving up delicious home-style Bihari fare, as well as familiarising its customers with an ethic of organically sourced food. And there is good news yet for its patrons, as Potbelly has introduced a Bihari food festival from February 28 to March 2. The festival which will take place at the venue itself will have a new menu in place to be made available for the duration of the festival. The delicacies include items from the interiors of Bihar, in an attempt to make people more aware of Bihar’s local flavours and its cuisine beyond the token litti-chokha and thekua.

Food festival on the onset, the visitors to the Bihari Food Festival seem in for a cultural tour as well, as Potbelly has incorporated several techniques to make it a more comprehensive experience of the Bihari ethos and culture for its visitors. Other parts of the festival include cultural performances, tending towards ethnic folk to go with the rural charm of the food that the festival is celebrating. Another aspect of the festival is the availability of traditional Bihari games of Goti and Chaupad that visitors will get to partake in. Potbelly has modified these games to enhance the experience of playing it by borrowing from mythological themes and characters. The board games themselves have been designed and hand-crafted by artisans working in Delhi, and are a visual spectacle as well. A fun way of introducing a newbie to the joys of the region, the games will make the participants learn about aspects of Bihar which are not very well known outside the land itself.

A screening of a documentary which traces the spiritual and educationist schools of thought prevalent in ancient Bihar has been arranged for, which will be accompanied by a photo exhibition which encapsulate the traditional ways of cooking food and producing organic fare, documenting the practises associated with food in the state.

A range of products have been introduced for the customers to buy as souvenirs, in case you cannot have enough of Potbelly’s food. The Potbelly Preserves include items like Makoi ka Jelly, Ol Pickle, Aloo Pickle, Chyawanprash and Litchi Honey. All the products are 100% organic, and have been prepared using home-grown herbs and contain no preservatives. The Chyawan Chyawanprash has been prepared by an Ayurvedic specialist in Muzaffarpur in Bihar, as Pooja Sahu, co-owner of Potbelly Rooftop Cafe told us.

Potbelly’s success speaks volumes about Delhi’s gastronomical landscape, and while the food relies on the specificities of Bihari fare, their attention to detail wins us over. It looks like our potbellies are going to be enriched again, with an upcoming promising festival at this Rooftop Cafe.

[venuefooter]