500 delicacies in Sangai festival
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Sobhapati Samom

Imphal, November 23 2011: "If you wanted to have a unique taste to tingle your taste bud you should visit Chinzak( food)court of the ongoing Manipur Sangai Festival 2011 at Hafta Kangjeibung in Manipur's state capital" .

This was a quick reaction from Khuraijam Athouba, one of the coordinator of the Chinzak (food) court when this reporter tried to explore what are other attraction besides adventure, cultural and musical extravaganza of the ongoing the state tourism festival which is popularly known to the local populace as Sangai festival which entered third day today.

Of the 300 stalls offering different varieties of handloom and handicraft products of more than 30 different ethnic groups of Manipur besides health care services and others, more than 100 food stalls in the festival have been offering more than 500 different indigenous delicious cuisines and mouth-watering continental delicacies and dishes.

Above all Thailand food stalls are another attraction of the festival.

Food lovers can check out for the typical local cuisine of the season such as Chakhao bora or Chakhao matum (Pakoda made of puffed sticky black rice) Koujeng Kanghou, (Fried Locust),Oak Chagem pomba, a typical skilled pork curry, varieties of chicken, dug and pork fry and curries, Ngaprum Singju, a spicy eel-salad, local sauces, rice beer, fermented juice etc.

"So if you wanted to promote tourism, we need to focus on our foods resources including the indigenous ones because they are the key components of attracting tourists these days in the region", says Athouba.

"Visitors hardly escape from the food court once they strolled in whether they buy goods or not" .

Urging to maintain neat and cleanliness besides having a separate smoking zone and avoiding use of plastics, KK Chhetry, Tourism Commissioner expressed the need to have quality tourism instead of quantity tourism.

Having regular food waste cleaning mechanism utilizing two water tankers daily besides installing fire extinguisher etc, the food court seem to have a well organized look unlike previous festivals.

However the continental food stalls outnumbered the indigenous food stalls overshadowing popular local snacks such as Kabok (sweet made of puffed rice), Heingan(fruit candy), Watin (Gram flour snacks), local Rasogola in the food court of the festival which is scheduled to conclude on November 30 .

Is this the sign of a quality tourism, comments a visitor.

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