East meets West as rapper set for feast

RAP superstar Kanye West is to have an Indian takeaway banquet and chef flown across the Atlantic for a business meeting in New York next week.

The platinum-selling artist, who has scored hits such as Gold Digger and Jesus Walks, is part of a group of eight people being catered for by a south Wales restaurant. The food, consisting of ayre fish in a bhuna sauce, onion bhajees, chapati breads, biryanis, pappadums and vegetable side dishes, will cost 2,950 on top of travel and accommodation expenses.

The British Raj Indian restaurant in Rogerstone, near Newport, is briefly suspending its takeaway delivery limit of 4.8km for the trip of nearly 4,200km.

The food will be chilled, shrink-wrapped and placed in dry-ice containers. The restaurant’s head chef, Kaysor Ahmed, will travel with the banquet tomorrow, firstly by helicopter from Tredegar Park in Newport to Heathrow and then on a flight to New York’s JFK airport.

Mr Ahmed will monitor the temperature of the food throughout the journey to ensure its safety and will serve it up to Kanye and his guests at a mystery location in Manhattan on Wednesday once it has passed through airport checks.