The Grand Trunk Road food fest runs until 26 October and features over 120 hand-selected dishes. Photos: Barbeque Nation
At 7pm on a Wednesday night, Barbeque Nation in Pavilion Kuala Lumpur is bustling with activity. There is the usual thrum and hum of people chatting and forks and spoons clattering. This normalcy is punctuated by a group of staff huddling together in the middle of the restaurant. Their seemingly random congregation instantly rouses curiosity.
Soon, euphoric Indian music plays in the background and the staff begin dancing – their faces lighting up with joy. The atmosphere is infectious and a couple of diners join in the merriment.
This festive fun is part of Barbeque Nation’s sophomore Grand Trunk Road Food Fest, running from now till 26 October 2025 for dinner and priced at RM79 per person from Mondays to Thursdays and RM84 per person from Fridays to Sundays.
The buffet features some of the best recipes gleaned throughout Asia's famed Grand Trunk Road.
The festival celebrates the rich culinary heritage of one of Asia’s oldest and longest roads: the Grand Trunk Road. The road has been a lifeline for merchants and travellers for over 2,500 years and spans a distance from Kabul in Afghanistan to Chittagong in Bangladesh.
Barbeque Nation is one of India’s most popular restaurant chains and was opened in Bombay, India in 2006. Since those fledgling early years, the chain has flourished and now has over 250 outlets all over the world. The outlet in Pavilion KL opened nearly five years ago and is the brand’s first Malaysian outpost.
“This food festival is a core of Barbeque Nation because we want to give an experience – not just the meal and the service like other restaurants. We want to make it more unique and different so that when guests come here, they don’t get the same monotonous feeling,” says Birju Raika, the director of Barbeque Nation and the organiser of the festival.
The buffet features chaats, grilled items, soups, rice, dishes, grilled fare as well as a wide selection of desserts.
During the food fest, the restaurant is offering over 120 dishes, carefully selected from the most memorable recipes gleaned throughout the ancient road.
“The Grand Trunk Road starts from Kabul in Afghanistan and it crosses major cities like Peshawar and Lahore in Pakistan and Amritsar in the Punjab province in India. And it also comes through Delhi, which was very influenced by Mughal cuisine. The road also goes through west Bengal and Bangladesh, which represents the food of Bengal.
“So we chose the most popular dishes from all these regions and brought it to this food festival,” says Birju.
Come completely famished because you’ll need a huge appetite to make your way through the wide, varied offerings here – that straddles chaats, grilled fare, hot cooked items and a smorgasbord of sweet treats.
The grilled fare is served table-side.
Of what’s on offer, there is honestly so much to whet the appetite. The dawdo shorba or Pakistani mutton soup is a rich, peppery broth laced with chunks of mutton while the Murshidabadi chicken biryani – which traces its roots to old Delhi – is aromatic, hearty and spice-riddled.
The Lahore paneer masala meanwhile boasts firm yet tender cubes of paneer in a rich masala gravy while the Bangladeshi dish of begun bharta features a fabulously good eggplant mash layered in a robustly-flavoured series of spices.
From the grill section, indulge in an unlimited supply of delightful charred fare like the Mughlai tandoori chicken which boasts succulent meat coated in a rich marinade infused with the flavours of the Indian sub-continent.
The mutton sheek kebab meanwhile, is a more meaty offering that captures the essence of carnivorous pleasures while the grilled prawns are plump and voluptuous yet retain a singularly pleasant blistered surface.
Dance performances, a band, a bangle-maker and a henna artist are all part of the festivities surrounding the food fest.
If you’re after vegetarian grilled fare – the buffet serves up everything from paneer to mushrooms and even broccoli on skewers!
From the desserts on offer, there is honestly so much to tempt and tantalise. The Angoori gulab jamuns for instance are soft little globes soaked in sweet, saccharine syrupy joy while the jalebi breaks apart into sweet, seductive brittle goodness.
Other desserts to try inclyde cham cham, rasmalai, sondesh as well as more contemporary treats like pineapple pastry, chocolate mousse and blueberry cheese cake.
To top it all off, the buffet is rounded out by artisans making hand-crafted bangles (you can select the one you like and purchase a set of two for RM10) and a henna artist who will decorate your hands for you.
“We did the festival last year and the response was very good. So there was a demand from guests who kept asking us when we were doing it again; that's why we are doing it,” says Birju, smiling.
Barbeque Nation
Level 9, Pavilion Elite KL
168 Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 012 309 6088
Open daily: noon to 11pm
