Festival time! It’s the seventh year of Alchemy at Southbank Centre in London, so I just had to catch all the excitement and fun!!

In 2016, the seventh Alchemy brings artists, performers and contributors from around the world together to collaborate, in order to showcase the best of dance, music, theatre, design, fashion, comedy and literature from the UK and South Asia. (SC website)

The list of events (free & paid) cater to many – you can choose what you want to be a part of and move about exploring different sights & sounds to get a true taste of London’s openness to celebrate other cultures & arts

I attended this fest last year as well and was mesmerized by the performance of the talented Anushka Shankar, daughter of the truly incredible, late – Ravi Shanker, play her beautiful Sitar for us, this time it was the turn of the delightful Tabla Master – Zakir Hussain

If you enjoy exploring the arts, theatre, music, culture or food this is just one festival you can’t miss out on!

I personally, love spending a day at the Southbank Centre on regular days too and think they are great hosts of cultural events that enrich the lives of so many – great job done, keep them coming!

For the food part of this event, I recommend going in a group as you would then be able to taste different delights from many of the amazing food traders, this time we were a much smaller group, so we had the chance to binge out on several treats.

The style of food tends to be mostly South Asian street food – anything from bhutta (slow coal roasted corn), chaat, curries, biryani, wraps, tandoori, parathas, lassi, masala chai and the list just goes on! Catering to the likes of any foodie – Veggie, Vegan, Carnivore etc.,

The food I tasted was very authentic! If I should say so myself, being of Indian/ South Asian  origin 🙂

I learnt that all these amazing food traders were put together by KERBFood – the specialists in showcasing talent of food traders across the UK – check them out if you are keen to organize events

Some of the food we tried included: the lip smacking briyani from The Indians Next Door!! loved this – one of the best biryanis I’ve had in a long time; fabulous Bangladeshi & Kerala curries from the Curry Shack – loved the flavors in these curries! ; the delectable Kothu parathas with garlic floured yogurt relish from Kothu Kothu – speechless!!

For drinks – among others,  it had to be the Indian Kingfisher Beer & the lush classic Mango Lassi from the brightly painted – The Little Lassi Shop!! L-O-V-E!! I’m so sorry if I have not mentioned all the others this time, I truly appreciate your efforts and will visit another time 🙂

Among many things what I loved the most was all the bright & colorful shacks it made such a difference to the cloudy day! Over all great day of fun, chilling in London

It is a week-long or so event that started on – Friday, 20th May 2016 and will continue on to Monday, 30th May 2016 – so it’s on all week – if you’re in the Big Smoke then you cannot miss out!

Here’s a glimpse of all the fun and festivities from yesterday:

 

 

 

 

 

Please note: this is not a sponsored post, just my own experience at my own expense, just how it should be 🙂 All references hyperlinked – just click on 😉