Vizag has no seafood dish of its own!

Here is some surprise news that may be taken with a pinch of salt by the gourmets. For all its metropolitan and premier global city status, the ever-bustling Port City has no local flavour or dish that can be tagged along as a home-grown delicacy.

Yes, you had it right. Visakhapatnam, known as the coastal metropolitan city of Andhra Pradesh, fails to offer tasty mouthwatering sea food to its locals and tourists.

The hotels in and around Vizag have plenty of sea food dishes that one can savour but they fail to provide desi varieties.

“We get many varieties of fish. The city requires around 60 tonnes of seafood on any given dayper day for local consumption. Some popular varieties are silver pomfret, seer fish and prawn.

The most delicious are the king size prawns and tuna fish which are exported to Europe and US and fetch a whopping Rs 6,000 crore in foreign exchange annually,” points out a hotel owner on the beach road.

In fact, many more varieties are supposed to be available but to the chagrin of the locals, it’s not happening. In short, Vizag cannot boast its own special seafood. Many multi-cuisine restaurants are providing sea food but none of them are special or bear a distinct Vizag aura or flavour. In order to popularize the existing varieties, hotels drum up food festivals at periodical intervals. Many have been lined up for the winter season.

For instance, Green Park offers a tasteful sampling of dishes like mackerel, lobster, garlic butter fish, pomfret, chineses loose wings, ginger labs, fish apollo and the cooking styles include Indian, Chinese and continental cuisines like tandoori and stir fry.

The Bengali food festival, which began on Saturday, includes special seafood with new varieties, points out senior captain Ravindra.

Not to be left be left behind, the Barbaque food festival with a specialty of grilled sea food will get going at Vihar Restaurant on the beach road.

“The locals, who thrive on seafood can now taste Mahi Tikka, Kunam fish, Pole fish, Malai Ginger and Tiger prawns with new tastes at the food festival”, points out Operations Manager, Koteswara Rao.

Novotel has already set in motion the Arabian Sea variety with the Goan food festival that is attracting impressive crowds. “In addition to the famed Goa cuisine, we offer regular dishes of Promphet, Kunkuni Lobster cooked in Tandoori cuisine and variety dishes of prawns every day,” says Novotel restaurant manager Chandan.

“Compared to coastal cities like Kovalam and Chennai, Vizag lacks different varieties of sea food dishes”, said Prasad Muddam.

Seafood lovers are not complaining because they have got addicted to the mind-boggling variety that the city offers, even if they are from outside.