SOA Hotel Management Institute To Hold ‘Pakhala Festival’; Check Dates & Other Dishes

Bhubaneswar: The School of Hotel Management (SHM), SOA’s faculty of hospitality and tourism management, will be organising a five-day ‘Pakhala Festival’ at the institute from April 3 to 7.

A traditional Odia cuisine, pakhala — comprising cooked rice washed or lightly fermented in water — has been one of the most popular dishes across the state for ages.

Pakhala, which is offered to the deities at Puri’s Lord Jagannath Temple, is consumed round the year in Odisha though it is specially looked forward to during the summer for its myriad health benefits.

The dish has, of late, found its way into the menu list of high-end restaurants as its popularity is on the rise.

To popularise the dish further and help people relish its taste, SHM has decided to organise the Pakhala Festival.

“The main objective of organising the event is to popularise the traditional and unique Odisha cuisine among the food lovers of the capital city,” said Prof. Susant Ranjan Chaini, Dean of SHM.

Visitors will be served the dish — considered to be a cooling probiotic — with a number of mouth-watering accompanying dishes in an ambience highlighting Odia culture and lifestyle.

Students, guided by Prof. Chaini and faculty members, will be arranging the festival, an annual feature of the institute.

The restaurant at the institute will serve pakhala and accompanying dishes to the guests between 12 noon and 3 pm on all five days of the festival.

Several variants of pakhala, like ‘Usuna Pakhala’, ‘Arua Pakhala’, ‘Dahi Pakhala’, ‘Lembu Pakhala’ and ‘Ada Pakhala’, will be served to guests with accompanying dishes which include ‘fish patrapoda’, ‘chingudi chhecha’, ‘chuna machha bhaja’, ‘kukuda kassa‘, ‘sukhua bhaja’, ‘pohala bhaja’, ‘chingudi jharjhari’, chhatu patrapoda’, ‘alu kalara batti tarkari’, ‘alu bhaja’, ‘saga bhaja’, ‘baigan bharta’, ‘gota bhendi bhaja’, ‘poda tomato chutney’ and ‘amba chhecha chutney’.

Pakhala, known by other names or its variants, is also popular in other parts of eastern India and several neighbouring countries including Nepal, Bangladesh and parts of Myanmar.