BEIJING, Aug 25: Dishes like Bombay prawn curry, chicken Kolhapuri, pork vindaloo, chicken Mughlai and sambar have emerged as the most favourite among the affluent Chinese as well as foreign tourists at a unique India food festival here.

``The response for the first-ever Indian food festival in China has been fantastic,'' Lance Ourednik, director of food and beverage at the Great Wall Sheraton hotel in Beijing said.

``We are enthused by the response and we plan to do it again next year during India's Independence Day celebration,'' Ourednik told PTI here.

The nine-day festival, organised here as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of India's independence, concluded on Sunday. Subash Basrur, executive chef of the Great Wall Sheraton, said authentic Indian curries made with locally available meat and vegetables had won praise from the local Indian community as well.

``The only items we imported were the spices and the tandoor oven,'' Basrur said. The oven was brought from India with the help of Air-India while the spices came from Melbourne, Australia. The food festival was also an occasion for several Chinese artistes, who have learned Indian classical dance and music, to perform for enthusiastic art lovers.

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