Mahottari, Feb 18: The hotel and tourism entrepreneurs of Mahottari have joined hands and organized a street food festival here to publicize their place and increase public interest in local cuisine.

Bardibas Municipality Mayor Pralhad Kumar Chhetri inaugurated the three-day event organized by the Hotel and Tourism Entrepreneurs Association, Mahottari here on Saturday. The street food festival is organized at the meeting point of the East-West Highway and the BP Highway, 500 meters towards the BP Highway. The Festival will run till tomorrow.

The Association stated that the Festival aims to cater a variety of food items in a single place. It is believed that the event will help publicize Bardibas and increase interest in the local indigenous food varieties. 

Stalls offer a variety of food items such as sidra, ghongi, smoked fish, neetle soup, timbur, gundruk, tama, beans, jilebi prepared from chhena, sweets and cookies, Newari snack package and popular international cuisines have been kept in the Festival. 

Apart from hotel and restaurant entrepreneurs, the hotel management and dairy students of the Nirmal Lama Polytechnic School, Khayarmara, Bardibas-11, Nepal Academy of Tourism and Hotel Management (NATHM), Bardibas and the Secondary School Bardibas-8, Hathilet have also run their stalls. 

There are 50 stalls preparing separate food varieties in the Festival and the visitors can observe and enjoy the taste of a range of food items.  Association’s general secretary Narayan Ghimire said domestic and external tourists can satisfy their taste buds with local cuisines amidst the hospitality with a distinct identity of Madhesh.

A discount of 20 to 40 percent has been offered on the food. The Festival also features various cultural programmes.

The organizers expect that about 50 thousand people will visit the Festival which has been organized at a cost of around Rs 1.5 million.

This street food festival is also expected to contribute to the cause of a trekking campaign initiated few days back by the Association and the Bardibas Town Journalists Network, Mahottari, which aims to explore and publicize the tourism destinations and possibilities in Bardibas.(RSS)