KARACHI: A wide variety of food from Hyderabadi to Meeruthi to Italian to Chinese, and from high-calorie mithais to healthy snack bars and salads to even gluten-free products, the Karachi Eat Food Festival that began on Saturday was well put together catering to everyone’s taste and diet requirements.

In one corner of the spacious lawns of Frere Hall, Mahrukh and Farah were sitting with their friends under an umbrella canopy and told Dawn that they found out about the festival from Facebook and Zubeida Apa’s TV show.

Commenting on the festival, Mahrukh and Farah said: “This is a good fair and it should happen more often.” When asked what they had so far, Mahrukh replied: “We have gorged on every meetha that the stalls are offering.” According to Farah, sugarcane juice and chapli kebab were some of the best fare at the festival. Both ladies who live in Defence said they had eaten so much that they were going to forego dinner and maybe Sunday breakfast!

Indeed, the ladies were not off the mark in terms of diversity of cuisine at the festival.

In another end of the lawn, the paraphernalia for a cake competition Swot-a-Cake was being put together. With My Karachi My Home as the theme, some of the 11 competitors had created literal interpretations of the city. For instance, Mrs Saleha Nadeem of Karachi Kupkakes had baked a cake decorating it with the Quaid’s white mausoleum, red and black ajrak and Orangi’s well-known Kati Pahari! Another home-based baker had decorated her cake using fondant inspired by the Ahmed Rushdi song Bandar Road se Keamari. According to Nezihe Hussain, one of the organisers of the competition, the concept behind Swot-a-Cake is to offer a platform to home-based professional bakers who do not have bakeries to sell their products.

Kamran Hassan and his family from Gulshan-i-Iqbal were tucking into food from China Kitchen, Okra, Pantry and Chapli Kebab House. “I follow Swot’s guide for city’s restaurants, cafes, dhabas, khokas and take-outs on Facebook [an online food club of sorts] and it is through them that I found out about the festival.” According to his mother-in-law, the festival indicated that the situation in the city today is normal and hence they were attending it and were enjoying themselves.

Set up by Special Children’s Educational Institute, teachers and volunteers were busy with children at a range of interesting art stalls which they had set up. Eleven-year-old Waleed was making a tie and dye shirt for his sister, a little girl at another art stall was quietly painting a butterfly cut-out while at a photo booth stall children were picking out outfits and accessories and took photos of themselves with their mobile phones.

The festival also has an animal shelter stall where volunteers were seen talking to the visitors about animal care and treatment and collecting money.

Just before sunset, chairs were being lined up in rows for visitors to watch a cooking demonstration that was to be conducted by Shireen Anwar, one of TV’s top cooks and people lining up at an ATM drawing out money probably to lavish on their insatiable appetite for food.