A popular New York restaurant has unveiled in its menu a new dish — Arvind mini knaidel — named after the 2013 National Spelling Bee winner Arvind Mahankali.

    Indian-American student Mahankali won first place in the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee competition by correctly spelling the word “knaidel,” the German-derived Yiddish word for a small mass of leavened dough.

    The bee tested brain power, composure and, for the first time, knowledge of vocabulary.

    The announcment was made on Monday at an event in New York organized by U.S. congresswoman Grace Meng to commemorate the victory of Mahankali, who resides in her constituency in Queens’s borough of New York, at Ben’s Best Kosher Deli in Rego Park, Queens.

    Mahankali finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012, and both times, he was eliminated on German-derived words. This time, he got one German word in the finals, and the winning word was from German-derived Yiddish, eliciting groans and laughter from the crowd. He spelled both with ease.

    “The German curse has turned into a German blessing,” he said.

    He’ll take home US$30,000 in cash and prizes along with a huge cup-shaped trophy.

    An aspiring physicist who admires Albert Einstein, Mahankali said he would spend more time studying physics this summer now that he’s “retired” from the spelling bee.

    Mahankali becomes the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner and the 11th in the past 15 years, a run that began in 1999 when Nupur Lala captured the title and was later featured in the documentary “Spellbound.”

    The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. Although most of its participants are from the United States, students from countries such as The Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Japan, Jamaica, Mexico and New Zealand have also competed in recent years. Anyone who is in eighth grade or below and is under 16 years old is eligible for the contest.(SD-Agencies)