Tricolour Idli, Jaishankar Drink: NDTV At US Eatery Serving "Modi Ji Thali"

Akbar restaurant in Edison, New Jersey has launched the Modi Thali to mark the Prime Minister’s visit. 

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official state visit to the US, a restaurant, in New Jersey, has launched a special thali in his honour. Akbar restaurant in Edison, New Jersey, has launched the “Modi Thali” to mark the Prime Minister's visit. Speaking about the thali, the owner of the restaurant, Pradeep Malhotra told NDTV, “We have been here for 30 years but we decided to launch the special thali because Modiji is coming on the 22nd (June) and the whole community is very very excited. We are all excited about him coming. So, we decided to do something and we came up with this thali which has items from all over India.”

Sharing details of what is in the thali, Mr Malhotra said, “We have idlis from south India, sarson ka saag from north India, we have dum aloo Kashmiri from Kashmir, we have dhokla from Gujarat, Maharashtrian dish called kothimbir vadi. It is the year of the millets, so we have decided to do something with the millets”. He added that the thali will be made available from June 22, when Prime Minister Modi arrives in Washington.

The chef also highlighted the idlis made in hues of green, saffron and white to resemble the Indian flag. Several customers, who also spoke to NDTV shared they “could not wait to try it” later this month and were positive that everything on the “plate would be delicious.”

That's not all. Minister of External Affairs of India, S Jaishankar, also has a drink dedicated to him at the restaurant. “For Mr Jaishankar, we are going to have a drink because he is a very aggressive and a very smart person. But non-alcoholic. It will be a non-alcoholic drink,” Pradeep Malhotra said about the drink.