Travelxp serves food from the highways

Move over street food, fine restaurants and exotic bars - here's a show that takes to the highways. Due to the sheer scarcity of chain restaurants like KFC and McDonald's in the inroads of India (and thankfully so), the best local food is available at local eateries on the highways, and quite popular amongst travellers by word of mouth.

The channel already telecasts two food shows, Strictly Streets that has been shot in over 60 cities in 75 episodes till date and Foodicted, which features international food joints (both streets and restaurants), having shot in 15 countries. The channel reveals that it will launch another show called Quest in the next fortnight.

NH4, which runs 1235 km from Mumbai to Chennai, has a variety of cuisines and food outlets like vada pav of Mumbai, special mutton rann on Western Express highway, misal pav of Pune, kandi pedas of Satara, tamda pandra rassa of Kolhapur, kundaa of Belgaum, ragi balls in Chitradurga, South Indian delicacies in Bengaluru and grills in Chennai. The journey will encompass the food, culture and essence of every place. The show will not only wander through places in India but also across the globe, showcasing confluence of cultures and exploring a culinary paradise.

Explaining the concept of the show, Prashant Chothani, CEO, Travelxp HD, says, "Despite being considered a little unhygienic, everyone cherishes the food on the highway. Plus, there is no list or internet information on these outlets. India and many other countries have a wonderful food culture on highways such that food changes every 20 kilometres."

The first season of the show with NH4 will have 26 episodes and the next season will feature another highway of the country. As for the other countries, the channel is conducting research to understand which countries have similar food habits and more localised chains.

In an official communiqué, Nisha Chothani, director, Travelxp HD, opines, "The television landscape is changing rapidly with digitisation and there is increasing demand for premium content. Travel and lifestyle is emerging as a genre with great potential. Through this, we are looking forward to a higher engagement with our audience to a deeper level through a new programming line-up which is both relevant and appealing."

The show guides the viewers to eateries on various highways across the globe that give the taste of unadulterated local flavours of a place. It hunts the non-franchised, sleeves-up food made by cooks on the highways.

For the record, Travelxp was launched in 2011 as a high definition (HD) travel channel. It has about 400 hours of originally produced content.