Mexico’s President drives Modi to a ‘world’s top 50’ restaurant for vegetarian meal
NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi’s cup runneth over in Mexico City today.
He got a rapturous welcome from the Indian community in Mexico City. Then, he got President Enrique Pena Niet’os “positive and constructive support” for India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). And to top it all, Pena Nieto personally drove PM Modi for a vegetarian dinner to Quintonil, one of the world’s top 50 restaurants of 2015.
The PM and Pena Nieto “Bonding over bean tacos!” tweeted external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup.
Modi is the first Indian PM to go on a state visit to Mexico, since former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s trip in 1986.
And to be sure, there must have been a lot more than bean tacos on the table. President Pena Nieto certainly picked well for the PM, a strict vegetarian.
When theworlds50best.com put the restaurant at number 35 in the world last year, it specifically mentioned its vegetarian fare.
“Though meat is a feature on the tasting menu, (Chef Jorge) Vallejo aims to highlight the value of fruit and vegetables, as much for their flavour as for their nutritional value. Dishes on the tasting menu include huazontles, a green vegetable that vaguely resembles broccoli, with chiapas cheese and red tomato, and nopal cactus snow,” the write-up said.
Quintonil has also been lauded for being environmentally conscious. A large part of the reason for India wanting NSG membership is so it can move forward in its effort to stem climate change.
The restaurant then was perhaps a perfect venue for Modi and Pena Nieto to chat more about the latter’s ”constructive” NSG support.
“With a strong commitment to reducing the ecological footprint of its food, Quintonil also sources much of its produce from its own urban orchard. While the majority of food in Mexico travels on average some 2,500 km from origin to plate, at Quintonil much of it is picked on a daily basis and travels just 30 metres.”
Foodies waiting to see if Swarup would tweet what dessert PM Modi had, would have been disappointed, because Swarup didn’t. If one were to guess, Modi might just have opted for something a little familiar from the dessert menu: Chikoo Pannacotta with Sweetened Corn Crumble and Chikoo Ice Cream.
After all, Modi did say – in a nod to Mexico’s son Octavio Paz – “I can understand what it means to be Mexican, because I am Indian”.
US President Barack Obama will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday in Paris where the two leaders would review Read more
VARANASI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch solar powered boats apart from distributing 1,000 e-rickshaws to people in his Lok Read more
TEHRAN: India on Monday signed 12 agreements with Iran, including a pact to operate a strategic port in Chabahar on Read more
NEW DELHI: India's biggest diplomatic battle since the nuclear deal has begun in earnest — New Delhi has quietly submitted Read more
