Celebrating diversity at the Around The World event

We are organising this event to celebrate the diversity of the city's international community. Food and drinks will be part of the night's festivities. We hope you can find a love for new tastes before our DJ enters and performs his international beats set.

Get tickets now and help us start spreading the word.

~19:30 reception, 20:00 MC welcome announcement

~International Beats Set by DJ at 22:00

~food from around the world included with ticket

~themed bars

~several dance acts

~raffle for great prizes throughout the evening

~dress: your national dress, something that represents your culture or the colours of your national flag

Event follow-up written on Friday 16 January...

Last night, nearly 300 guests joined us for a truly wonderful event. Many thanks to the people who made it happen:

• WSP for its sponsorship
• Conveyor Logistics for its sponsorship
• Emirates Airways for providing the grand raffle prize of two return tickets to Dubai
• Sabir Traders Limited for providing several fantastic raffle prizes
• Hiro Hisabayashi and her dance group, Salsa International Dhaka
• Mikey Leung for the photographs of Bangladesh
• SAR International for providing the T-shirts

Through the raffle ticket sales and t-shirt sales, we raised more than 70,000 taka for The Dhaka Project, a non-profit organisation that provides food, education, healthcare and shelter to slum-dwellers of the city.

Preparations are now underway for our next massive event: the 30th anniversary celebration, to be held on Friday 6 March.

The wonders of the ubiquitous kebab

Last month, we hosted a Kebab Night. It was so well-received, we thought we would write an entry that includes some info from the research that we conducted in preparation for it. At the bottom of the post is the menu of kebabs that we served on the evening.

The kebab, AKA kabob, kibob, kebhav, and kephav. World famous. The term refers to a variety of meat dishes found in Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, African, Central Asian and South Asian cuisine, almost always consisting of a grilled meats served on a stick. Simple and fantastic. Generally, kebabs include lamb or beef, though others make use of goat, chicken, fish and shellfish. Due to the origins of many kebab recipes in predominantly Muslim or Jewish regions, pork kebabs are not commonplace, though they can be found, for example, throughout India.

The simplicity of roasting meat on sticks over an open fire has resulted in worldwide variations on the same basic idea, and this method of cooking most probably became vastly popular around the globe due to the relatively small amount of cooking time, preparation and energy such as fuel or oil - cubes of meat cook quickly over a small flame. Much literature points to Turkish soldiers roasting meats on their swords as the birth of the kebab, though evidence shows shish kebab being cooked in Greece as early as the 8th century BC.

What many North Americans refer to as kebab is actually shish kebab - its translation in Turkish is “skewered grill-meat - and generally consists of lamb or beef, tomatoes, capsicum and onions threaded onto a skewer, though other common vegetables include eggplant, mushrooms and pickles. Variations on the shish kebab include the Greek souvlaki, the Russian shashlik, the French brochette, the Spanish pinchito, the Southeast Asian satay, the India kathi, and the Brazilian espetinho.

And what it is commonly known in the UK and Australia as kebab is actually döner kebab - its translation in Turkish is “rotating grill-meat” - and with variations in the Greek gyro and the Middle Eastern shawarma. Döner kebab is most popularly served in pita bread with salad. Other popular kebab include the chelow kebab - meat served with saffron rice - which is the national dish of Iran, the shami lamb kebab from India, and the adana kebab, which is minced lamb served on pita with onions. Today, though, we’ll be serving you worldwide variations on the shish kebab with some wonderful accompaniments.

Pork French Brochette With Baguette

Pork Spanish Pinchitos

Mediterranean Beef Kofta With Tzatziki And Pita Bread

Indonesian Chicken Sate With Peanut Sauce And Raw Onions And Cucumbers

Indian Chicken Tikka With Mint Yoghurt And Onions In Vinegar

Turkish Beef Shish Kebab With Yoghurt And Pita Bread

Vegetable Kebab

Fruit Kebab