Taj Palace Hotel pampers BRICS leaders

New Delhi, March 28 (IANS) From special menus to beautifully decorated banquets and lounges, Delhi's Taj Palace Hotel is pulling out all stops to please and pamper the BRICS leaders ahead of their fourth summit here Thursday.

Coffee from Brazil, tea from China, fresh fruit from South Africa and berries from Russia have been flown in to showcase the best of each representative country. The menu has been designed to offer the best of Indian cuisine.

"The desserts are specialty dishes from all five BRICS countries - brigadeiro, berry kissel, kalakand shahi tukda, date and sesame phyllo pouch, milk tart. This will be accompanied by kahva/masala chai and Indian mithai selection," said a hotel statement.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and South African President Jacob Zuma will hold wide-ranging talks and unveil their vision of an emerging world order at the 4th BRICS summit.

"The banquets in the hotel have been given an opulent look with rich carpets and wall panels complemented by ornamental chairs for the five leaders," the statement said.

"Done up like a library, a special lounge has been allocated for informal discussions which houses a collection of the finest coffee table books from India," it added.

The hotel has also made sure that the staff underwent accent training so that there was no trouble in communicating with the leaders.

"The staff serving the dignitaries has been put through a rigorous voice and accent training to help them understand the diction of the delegates. They will be sporting specially designed uniforms," said the statement.