The foodies in town had a gala time recently as the Capital was turned into a food haven during the city's first and the largest regional food festival. Titled Masalas of India, the first of its kind fest had delicacies from across India, all under one roof.

Taking the food aficionados on a food tour around India, the festival featured various regional cuisines like Goan, Parsi, Kashmiri, Awadhi, Bengali, Mangalorean and Naga to name a few.

Some of the most liked dishes on offering were Maharashtrian street food ~ Dabeli, Misal Pav and Bhel Puri by Bombay Brunch ~ Tunday Kababi from Lucknow, The Biryani Co serving Hyderabadi food ~ Haleem and Biryani ~ and Kake Di Hatti from Chandni Chowk besides Charan Singh Kulfi serving kulfis and chuskis among others.

Not only this, there were also summer saviours like Shikanji, Mohabbat Ka Sharbat and Chuski to slurp on. Thriving on the success of Horn OK Please, Delhi's first food truck festival, collaborators So Delhi and GoBuzzinga decided on the theme for this fest, based on the idea that people in the Capital often crave for more varieties of Indian food to break the monotony of Western cuisine.

"There is so much rich diversity in terms of food and culture that our country possesses in spades that has been virtually untapped, that we thought we'd showcase them to all the foodies of Delhi," said Digant Sharma, founder of So Delhi.

Echoing similar sentiments, Shantanu Verma, founder of GoBuzzinga, observed, "A food festival that brings together everything regional ~ regional food, regional music and even regional beverages ~ is something thoroughly novel and it nicely broke the monotony of Western food that Delhi is swamped with."

Ananya, one of the visitors, said, "Being a foodie, I was very much excited about this fest. I have come here with my friends and what better than having all your favourite cuisine under one roof." Another visitor from Gurgaon, Pankaj Sharma, said, "I tried the south Indian cuisine and also kulfi. I really liked them. Even the Mohabbat ka Sharbat was very nice."

There were people of all ages and from all walks of life. Besides, Maggi also launched four new regional flavours at the event ~ Mumbaiya Chatak, Amritsari Achari, Super Chennai and Bengali Jhaal ~ all of which were being sampled live with unlimited, complimentary helpings for each visitor that came to the festival. Quite interestingly, the festival featured various homegrown artists and bands from Delhi as well as Indian regional bands to regale visitors coming to Masalas of India.