Raval launches Curry for a Cause in aid of the Bubble Foundation

May 21 2010 by Jessica Travers

FOOD lovers are invited to eat their way around India at a top Tyneside restaurant to help a Newcastle-based charity save the lives of sick children. JESSICA TRAVERS finds out more.

SHRIMP and seafood pie served with coconut milk; roast beef moursaka; traditional Portuguese influenced fish curry with tamarind; cardamom and nutmeg infused dessert.

There’s more. Lotus stem and mash potato dumplings; lamb with Lahore lentil and Punjabi spices; marinated fish cubes in tomato based masalidar sauce; tandoori cooked aubergine and meat stuffed chicken breasts.

And that’s not to mention Bengali lamb curry with mustard potatoes; cubes of fish cooked in yoghurt with ponch phoram (five spices); aubergine in rich tempered tomato and pre-marinated stir-fried chicken served on salad.

Hungry yet? You may not realise it, but the above dishes have taken you on a culinary journey of India – from Goa to Bengal via the Punjab.

Even in print they sound mouth watering, each displaying hugely different flavours and spices, cooking styles and traditions.

But it is one thing to immerse yourself in a nation’s food via the written food.

How much better to be able to try it for yourself. Flying to India won’t be an option for most of us. But Avi Malik of Gateshead’s award-winning Raval luxury restaurant and bar is offering the next best thing.

Three banquets over three nights, each featuring food from three very different but distinct parts of India.

That’s not all, however. Should the delights of Goa, the Punjab or Bengal still fail to get your vote, Avi has a final card up his sleeve – the chance to eat like a president at a special five course VIP banquet.

On the menu will be the same dishes served by Barack Obama to the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmoham Singh on his state visit to Washington last November – plus an array of other enticing Asian foods.

The banquets form the centrepiece of an Indian food festival run by Raval between June 5-10.

It is hoped the event will inspire and educate people to take a closer look at the modern Indian cuisine Raval specialises in, which is a million miles away from traditional British curry house fare.

But there is more to the festival than encouraging people to look beyond chicken tikka massala when they venture out for an Indian meal.

For all profits from the six-day event will go to the Bubble Foundation UK, which helps save the lives of babies and children born with no immune system.

Avi hopes food lovers will turn out in force to raise as much cash as possible for the charity, which helps fund the pioneering work taking place at Newcastle General Hospital to cure the young sufferers of the rare inherited condition called Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID).