Abi:original - If you aren't original, what are you?

India's first Michelin Chef Vineet Bhatia at the BOLD Talks at DUCTAC Dubai. Image by Abigail Mathias He stood there smiling, reminding me of the famous Maharaja, the Air-India airline mascot. Of course I'm not too sure if India's first Michelin chef, Vineet Bhatia would much appreciate the resemblance this writer is making. But I am glad that the smile drew me in to listen to a rather lengthy talk about taking bold choices... Chef Vineet Bhatia is a pretty famous face for most of us Indians. He's been responsible for taking Indian cuisine to new heights. Here in the UAE his multitude of eateries have large waiting lists and I can't really say I've dined at them but yes I've been served some of his food in the first class lounge of a certain airline in this region. So yes, I went with my own reservations. It had been a long day of listening to many experts from various fields. Some people started late but Vineet was here on time. Little did most o...

So yes, I've given away the punchline in the heading of this post. Have to admit I have mixed feelings about seeing myself on camera. Not too sure I match up to the celebrities who were at the event that I was attending. Food Addict is a new show by Zen Productions. It will focus on Malaysian cuisine with a strong emphasis on healthy foods. The show is expected to air in September 2016 and was introduced to the UAE media recently. The event was highly anticipated as the launch brought four famous Indian personalities to the venue. These included comedian and actor Javed Jaffrey, actor R. Madhavan, actor and model Rahul Dev (who will be hosting the food show) and singer Sukhbir. After addressing questions from the media about their favourite foods, R. Madhavan threw light on his experiences with Malaysian cuisine. Incidently the actor and Sukhbir are both  vegetarian. Actor Javed Jaffrey had us in splits with his characteristic puns. The attendees were then offered an array o...