Unique biryani tastes available at Al Bidda Park

It is perfect time to dine out in Doha. During the spring evenings, people usually want to go out for dinner with friends and family. In Doha, if you want to enjoy an evening out with street food environment, the ongoing Biryani Festival at Al Bidda Park is the right place to be.The second edition of the festival is bigger and more attractive. It continues to pull crowds of people like anything. More interestingly, more and more families with children are seen at the park alongside Corniche, where cool evening breeze mixes aroma of different dishes with melodious Arab and South Asian music.There are food stalls set up by well-known restaurants, offering their specialties of biryani and other cuisine at the festival that will continue till March 2. A recent visit to the festival by Community showed that many restaurants have introduced different and unique biryani recipes. The festival is organised by Four and One Group.Talking to Community, Fernando Deguama, representative of the Four and One Group, said, “We started the festival last year in February. We had 35 tenants coming up with their initial biryani ideas. A burger biryani was launched at our festival last year. We had the first biryani mixed with Italian food. This year, we see it has increased from 35 to 51 tenants. Lots of people are coming with new ideas, new tandoors and new techniques. We have some famous chefs here, including Aisha al-Tamimi. They all are coming up with new menus at the festival this year. We are seeing a new trend of food-related festivals in Qatar. We make sure that everyone enjoys Indian spices mixed with Qatari flavours. It is an international and local festival at the same time.“The core idea of having this festival is to let the people enjoy different recipes of biryani. Biryani, originally, came from Asia. With the passage of time, it has evolved to be a kind of Qatari national dish. Of course, there are majboos and other dishes but still biryani is one of the prime dishes here. So we wanted to highlight it and engage people in come up with creative ideas to elevate it, not only being a day to day dish but also being more of inclusive dish or being more of a high end cuisine.”Sharing his experience about the last year’s festival, he said, “Last year, it was amazing. We had almost 2,500 to 3,000 people coming to the festival every day. It has increased this time. Of course, in the first few days, the turnout was not that spectacular. But, it picked up its pace in the last few days. For this edition, we have pushed everybody to come up with new menus and create new ideas. In total, seven tenants are coming up with new menu, launching it at the festival.”Sharing about other attractions available at the festival site, he said, “We have entertainment facilities for kids. We also have live stage performances and activities for different communities.“Four and One Group is an event management company. We organised around nine festivals last year. We are concentrating more on concept festivals. We will be doing only three festivals in 2019. We are specialised in what we are doing. We can support the local entrepreneurs and enterprises to have franchises outside Qatar. The event industry in Qatar is now beginning to take a new shape when we are closer to 2022. We can see the private sector getting more active in creating new ideas. There is an entertainment world. There is a night market. New concepts are coming up every now and then, which is good for the industry. It creates healthy competition.”Mohammad Jasim al-Abdulla, a young Qatari businessman who runs the restaurant Bel 5ms, said, “I participated last year. This year we have brought a new dish called biryani burger. We also offer cheese fried chicken balls. We are looking forward to promoting this new brand in the market. We are launching new flavours at the festival. The price to set up the stall is very affordable. They have marketed the festival very well.”Kajol Himraj, who was attending the festival with her family said, “It is great to have such festivals. It allows people to come and have something to do in Qatar. The ambience is nice and the food is really great. It is very close to West Bay and very convenient for everybody to come here.”