Siliguri, Feb. 8: If you are spending a fortune to burn the extra adipose around your waist, stay away from Kanchenjunga stadium which is drawing droves of food freaks with the heady aroma of mouth-watering Chinese and continental cuisine and sizzling kebabs on the barbecue.

Even Bollywood movies running full houses took a backseat as people chose to skip the staple silver screen fare and dig into gastronomic delights on the first-day-first-show of the five-day Siliguri Food Festival yesterday. More than 4,000 people, eager to sample the spread of Indian, Chinese and Continental cuisine, visited the venue. The panipuri, tandoori, kebab and shebpuri stalls were a big hit with the food junkies as were the quintessential ice cream and fruit-juice stalls that helped them wash down their meals.

Apart from the endless array of delicacies offered by the 35 stalls, some women’s self-help groups are also making waves with recipes with exotic names like grihinir hanrir khobor and annapurna.

“Our initiative was a hit on the very first day. Today being a Sunday, we are expecting three times the number of people,” said Anjan Bose, the chief executive officer of Nilgiri Food Products, the organiser of the event.

All the feasting is for a good cause too. “A percentage of the proceeds from the fest will be used for the betterment of the workers of closed tea gardens and for the treatment of ailing local journalist Dipak Ghosh,” one of the organisers said.

For those with a fetish for traditional Bengali-style sweeteners, stalls for payesh (Bengali dessert), gajarer halua and variety of peethe and puli (pancakes) have also been set up. There is also a sprinkling of stalls offering hill delicacies like selrotis (Nepali doughnuts) and piping hot thukpa and momo.

“Delicacies like patisapta, muger puli and malpoa evoke memories of my fun-filled childhood when mummy prepared these items so I could have them after I returned from school. Nowadays, no one finds the time to indulge in the lesser joys of life,” said Nilotpal Sen, a bank executive in his fifties, biting into steaming pulis.

“To spice up proceedings, we will organise eating contests, ke koto khete pare, on Wednesday, the last day of the fest,” said Krishna Pal, an organising official.

Before the eating contests, however, cooking contests for housewives and college students will be organised tomorrow and the day after.