Huge demand for Sadya,thespecial meal served on the occasion of the south Indian harvest festival Onam, has left restaurants in the UAE scrambling to meet the requirements.
Most restaurants Emirates 24|7 contacted were overbooked and the lunch was already getting over in some of them by 12.30pm.
Biju Koshy, owner of Tharavad restaurant, said he has already crossed 2,000 bookings for takeaway meals and the demand is still on.
“It is quarter past 12 now and we are just mid-way through our programme. Nearly 1,800 meals are already over. We had planned for only 2,000 meals.
“We had expected the demand to drop this year as schools are closed and families would prefer to travel to India to celebrate the festival. But what we saw today is quite the opposite,” said Koshy, who flew in special cooks to prepare the special meals.
It was a similar story in most other restaurants. Satish Kumar, Manager at Salkara restaurant, said: “Our bookings were closed in the morning itself. We planned 2,000 meals and all are sold out. People are queuing up here but we are unable to serve.”
This year the restaurant is only offering takeaway meals on account of Ramadan.
An official of Calicut Paragon too said all meals were sold out. “Despite an increase in the price of vegetables, we did not increase the price of meals this year. We maintained it at Dh30 and the demand has been phenomenal,” he added.
Onam Sadya, traditionally served on banana leaves, is a nine-course meal and consists of 11 to 13 essential dishes. The total number of dishes used to exceed up to 64.