Srinagar, Aug 22 (IANS): Taking time out of his busy schedule, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Kashmir’s famous hotel Ahdoo’s in Srinagar city to relish the traditional local cuisine, the ‘Wazwan’.

Taking his large security contingent by surprise, Rahul Gandhi decided to go to the busy and fashionable Residency Road area in the city.

“We had to quickly make deployments and clear roads for his arrival at the busy Residency Road. Traffic was partially diverted to the adjacent Maulana Azad Road to make security space for the VVIP visit,” said a senior security officer.

Gandhi drove straight to the Ahdoo’s hotel and sat in the hall among other guests present there at that time.

Abdul Hameed, manager of Ahdoo’s hotel told IANS, “Rahul Gandhi ordered a traditional Kashmiri Wazwan ‘Trami’. The Trami had traditional Wazwan dishes like ‘Meethi Maaz’, ‘Tabak Maaz’, ‘Kabab’ and ‘Chicken’. Then he was served the ‘Rishta’, ‘Rogan Josh’, and finally the ‘Gostaba’.

“Congress President, Mallikarjun Kharge was with him. He took vegetarian food”, the manager said.

Many locals gave a tough time to the security forces to have a glimpse of Rahul Gandhi and many of them used their mobile phones to record the event.

Gandhi also went to the nearby ‘Erina Ice Cream parlour to have an ice cream before wrapping up his evening visit to the city centre.

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge arrived in Srinagar on Wednesday evening on a two-day visit to Jammu & Kashmir to assess the party's preparations for the upcoming Assembly polls.

The two leaders will meet National Conference chief Dr Farooq Abdullah on the possible alliance between the two parties.

Later Gandhi will address party workers and then hold a press briefing at a hotel here. He will then fly to Jammu for election-related meetings. The two leaders will take feedback from party workers about the grassroots-level preparations for the elections which are being held in the UT after a gap of ten years.