This is a review of Bihari food festival curated by food author and chef Pallavi Nigam Sahay

In a NUtshell:

A nice Bihari food festival with almost home like very good and enjoyable Bihari food at prices that we two could fly to Patna and return if booked well in advance!!!

Address & other details: trident

Meal for 2: ₹3000 onwards

Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian

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I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster

Short description- in case u r in a hurry

Ever since we moved to mumbai, we have visited this restaurant several times to attend different regional food festivals. There have been highs and lows but we cud never resist the temptation to go to yet another one …. so decided to go to the Bihari food festival this time

This time the festive mood at the restaurant was a bit understated- there were no thematic installation like there was a mock truck during punjabi festival, outside the restaurant.

The menu card was printed in white paper unlike the beautiful hand made paper roll, royal farman lookalike ones before.

Chef Pallavi who curated the festival is a food author and she also does cookery shows on television and Internet channels. She is a trained professional chef but the food she served tasted more ‘home like’ than ‘typical restaurant like’ in most cases.

What was Shocking to us (coz it almost never happens) – we liked both the chicken dishes better than the Mutton dishes inspite of the mutton dishes being good already. Needless to say that the mutton in mumbai being quite inferior to delhi also made a difference. Comparing with Delhi coz we hv had some outstanding Bihari food at potbelly delhi, in addition to at our friend’s house.

Would have loved to see more unique Bihari dishes like thekua in the dessert menu.

Chef was on the floor herself and she was interacting with guests. She suggested the dishes for us for the evening and we went by the same.

Menu sheet was easy to read thru and had good description of the dishes.

Food was very good in general – few of them were outstanding. Chef did not keep it 100% authentic and she added twists and her creativity. Infact she named a dish or two herself. Good part is that we were informed of that and were hence not expecting hardcore authentic dishes.

Also the interesting part was that chef used different things than tomato as souring agent for most of the dishes.

Detailed description- in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

We started with taash gosht – marinated thin slices of Mutton cooked on a griddle. Loved the Great texture of meat and the burnt edges . The dish had a strong sour taste which overpowered the taste of meat at times. Flavours of meat had reduced considerably due to strong marination. Liked the dish – it was good. Rate it 3/5.

Champaran ke murgh ki tikki – it was a kabab made with chicken mince and sour wood apple. The Chicken kabab was simple, juicy (intense thick juice) , did not have too many spices, was a bit lumpy and just too good. Wood apple did not make its presence felt but I guess it worked silently to accentuate the kabab. Rate it 4.5/5

For main course we ordered Poorvanchal ke Saag (green amaranth). It was simply outstanding. Were floored with the uneven texture, a tinge of sour in the taste, the overall robustness of the dish. Simply unputdownable. Rate it 4.95/5

Be Masale ka gosht Mutton gravy took us some time to like it and the taste grew on us. The gravy was smooth, thick Finally we finished off the gravy till the last drop. Rate the Curry 4.5/5

Right in the first bite we figured (and later got it confirmed) that Meat and curry were cooked separately. We were told that the Meat was separately boiled in stock and added to curry. This wud never b done at a home but I guess it was done in the commercial kitchen set up. Result – the meat pieces were good on their own but did not seem to be a part of the gravy. Rate the meat pieces 3/5.

Overall rating of be masale ka gosht averages out to 3.75/5

Mattha (drink made from curd) was ok. nothing great. It lacked a character and a statement. It was just a feeble drink without a voice. Rate it 2.5/5

Tehri (rice and veggies cooked together) was very good to taste. Rate the taste 4.5/5

Flavours of the dish were lovely as we opened the covered vessel. Rate flavors 4.5/5

What went wrong was the texture of rice – the rice was sub optimally soft. Rate the texture 2/5.

Overall rating of the dish averages out to 3.75/5

Madhubani Chicken curry (chicken curry from Mithila region of Bihar) was terrific. I have no idea how authentic this dish is but it delighted the taste buds crazy. The chicken was marinated and grilled and then made into a curry. The pieces were soft and very tasty (contrary to common experience).

The gravy was robust and rustic. It had strong meaty flavors as well as that of spices. Loved the smoky flavor that had crept in. Rate the dish 4.95/5

We ordered kohra sarson ki subzi (Pumpkin cooked with mustard) curry to be packed and given to us. Hotel boys packed poorvanchal saag instead. Very silly as we had to eat the same thing twice and cud not experience a new dish. Later I check that they charged us for the saag as well.

For dessert we had Makhane ki kheer. It was intense, had flavors of cardamom and saffron, had a rich, creamy & grainy texture. It was excellent to taste and was super enjoyable. Rate the dish 4.75/5

Overall rating of food at Bihari festival averages out to 4/5

Look forward to the next rivaayat