Beetroot Curry

Has Browners gone completely insane? Beetroot curry sounds repulsive. He must have gone native. What’s next, pickled herring soufflé? A dill and walnut chocolate cake? Lingonberry scrambled eggs? But fear not. Beetroot curry is actually rather good. And fabulous to look at.

As you may have noticed, I’ve become rather attached to beetroot since moving to Sweden. It’s all part of my effort to eat more vegetables, to cut down on expensive meat and to become a bit healthier. And it turns out that beetroot are a blessing. They’re tasty, healthy, filling and hold their own against robust flavours. But would beetroot be able to cope with curry?

When Cowie and I were in India this time two years ago, we had a couple of cooking lessons from some of our hosts. I’ll never forget this chap at the Villa Rivercat in Goa patiently whipping up an incredible chicken curry with spices that were so expressive they were like Eddie Murphy after a dose of amphetamines. We both came back from India feeling incredibly healthy having eaten mainly vegetables and fish throughout our trip.

Inspired by thoughts of India I hatched a plan to create the reddest curry every seen and set off in search of spices. The Curry House, in the quaint district of Haga, has every spice known to mankind. And then some. They even sell bizarre things like black feathers, rhubarb root and lots of exotic medicines. It’s a bit like the market in Munnar, but less crazy.

Armed with fennel seeds, cumin, star anise, cardamom, dried red chillies, mustard seeds, turmeric and a massive bag of orange lentils I aromatically waddled back to my flat to do battle with the beetroot.

Ingredients:

10 beetroot
10 small potatoes
1 bag of fresh spinach (or can be frozen)
1 can of coconut milk
6 tomatoes
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
Chicken/vegetable stock
2 thumbs of ginger
1 dessert spoon of cumin seeds
1 desert spoon of fennel seeds
1 dessert spoon of mustard seeds
1 desert spoon of coriander seeds
10 cardamom pods
5 star anise
2 desert spoons of garam masala
6 dried chillies
Vegetable oil
Coriander leaves
Salt

Method:

Roast all the spices (apart from the garam masala and cardamom) until they are aromatic but not burnt. Then pound to a dust in a pestle and mortar.

Sauté the onion until soft then add the chopped garlic and cook for a few minutes. Then add the grated ginger and breath deeply. A few minutes later throw in all the spices including the garam masala. Allow to mingle and cook for whilst you heat your stock up.

Pour in the hot stock and then add the chopped and peeled beetroot along with the dried chillies and cardamom. You want the liquid to be covering the beetroot.

Allow this to bubble away for about an hour with the lid on – until the beetroot begin to become tender. Then add the halved potatoes and take the lid off so that the liquid reduces. Once the potatoes are becoming tender add the can of coconut milk and 6 finely chopped tomatoes.

Taste for spice levels and seasoning and adjust accordingly with some chopped fresh chillies. At the last minute, stir through some spinach. Sprinkle with chopped coriander and serve.

I had it straight up with no rice, lentils or bread. But I think it would be best served with a chapatti or steaming hot naan. Whilst it might be an assault on the eyeballs it’s a delight to eat.

I made a large vat of it and lived off it for most of the week. You can add some pork or chicken when you are craving a bit of meat.

Further reading:

Beetroot curry recipe from One Bite at a Time
Beetroot curry recipe from Coffee Muffins

Sherpa’s Pie

I enjoy experimenting with ideas. Especially when it comes to food and even more so if it involves a healthy amount of punning, such as with Mussel Re:Laksa and Ham Hockusai. One idea that Gilly and I developed was around the idea of fusion food, but rather than being based on the cuisines of the Pacific Rim, it combines and merges the foods of the British Empire.

We thought it would be fun to take classic English dishes and give them an exotic twist. And on other occasions take exciting dishes from the old British Empire and give them a British spin. Our best example so far is Sherpa’s Pie which, essentially, is a lamb curry with turmeric mashed potato on top – a Himalayan twist on the classic Shepherd’s Pie. We loved it as an idea because it seemed to capture our silly concept perfectly. And I love it even more now that I’ve made it!

All you need to do is rid your mind of preconceptions and any niggling doubts about the lack of authenticity and embrace an interesting idea. Here’s how to make it.

Toast a sprinkling of fennel seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and cinnamon. Then grind to a fragrant dust and add garam masala. Then add 3 finely chopped chillies, a large knob of grated ginger and some rock salt. Add some oil to form a spicy paste and then rub most of this all over your shoulder of lamb.

Add 10 quartered and deseeded tomatoes to the roasting pan along with 4 roughly chopped onions. Cover the tomatoes and onions in the rest of your paste and drizzle with oil. Roast in a hot oven for 20 minutes until the top has browned. When you open the oven door the smell should have you gasping for air and yearning for more at the same time. Turn the shoulder over so the spices on the underside turn brown as well. Roast at a high heat for a further 10-15 minutes and then transfer to a cooler oven (of if you’re not using an Aga turn the oven down). Let this burble away for 4 hours. When the meat starts to yield pour a jar of passata around the outside. Cook for another hour and then when you can see that the meat is yielding remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Now, boil a panful of potatoes in salted water and sprinkle around a tablespoon of turmeric into the water. It should turn the potatoes an alarming shade of yellow. Once cooked drain and mash with butter, milk and plenty of seasoning.

Pull the, now cooled, lamb shoulder apart and shred the meat. It should tease apart with a fork. Remove the bones and any superfluous fat. Transfer the meat and sauce to a casserole dish and test the seasoning. Then add a layer of spinach followed by the yellow mashed potato. Place this in the oven to heat through and mingle.

Serve with a bottle of Cobra beer.

I grinned throughout the cooking process and even more so when it came to eating it. I’m sure many people would be horrified by the idea of putting mashed potato on a curry. But I can assure you it worked brilliantly. Some have suggested using goat or yak for a bit of added authenticity. I will next time!

Punjab House – No Frills Curry in Balham

The Holy Cow spoils us. They aren’t just a take-away-service. They deliver tandooris of comfort and joy that have got us all hooked like smack fuelled mackerel. Whenever our moods are low the HC lifts us up like a whack of valium.

But we’ve begun to worry that we might be exhibiting signs of addiction such as “borrowing curry money” and having our supplier on speed dial. So we decided to go cold turkey on the Holy Cow for a week or so and experiment with some of the local curry dealers in Balham.

No sooner than we ditched the good stuff than we found ourselves in the Punjab House. If Holy Cow is Selfridges, then Punjab House is a cash and carry on the outskirts of Watford. Their imaginative tinsel decorations stay up all year round, the restaurant is typically empty and the lighting would make a prison look like an artist’s studio. But the main selling point is their dramatic closure for a “rodent infestation” at the beginning of last year.

Alex and I were oblivious to the health inspector’s damning report when we visited. (This could explain the owner’s deep suspicion of a posh chap taking photos in his deserted restaurant!)

The food is served from a small canteen by a very quiet lady. We thought it would have been rude not to sample all of the dishes, so we smiled at the lovely lady with ladle and got stuck in.

The food was surprisingly good. Richly spiced. Distinctly flavoured. And deliberately simple. They all looked muddy and boring, but tasted fresh and alive. We particularly liked the thought that had gone into the names of the dishes.

“Chicken with ginger” was light, boisterously spiced and generously chickened.

“Lamb with ginger” was identical, but for the tender chunks of meat that studded the sauce. It was one of the better lamb curries I’ve had for some time in a frugal, authentic sort of way.

“Chicken on the bone” was impressive. My lips smarted from a burst of chilli heat, almost before the sauce had made contact. But the heat was as transient as the chicken was tender. It brought back a painful memory of a friend’s mother who always asked the Nepalese takeaway for her chicken Madras to be made with breast meat only. (No. No. No.)

“Mixed vegetable curry with chickpeas” was a rich and filling spicy vegetable stew that puts most vegetable curries to shame. It was almost identical to the tin foil tub of veggie curry we bought on the train from Ernakulam to Goa and brought back a flood of memories that revolved around dodgy massages, tea plantations and awesome food.

“Lamb with spinach” looked like the slimy green moss you get on the rocks that pop their heads up above the tide on the beech. Luckily, it tasted great. Mildly spiced, but deeply flavoured.

But the best was still to come. As we chatted to the owner about the fact that he doesn’t care where his produce comes from and thanked him for a memorable supper he asked us to clear our plates away with an aggressive waft of the hand. Feeling stumped, we diligently scuttled back to our table, stacked our plates, wiped the table with a napkin and delivered the plates back to the counter. We then left in a fit of giggles with a bizarre new addiction to Punjab House.

Punjab House isn’t for the faint hearted. Their hygiene track record is far from squeaky clean and their manners are hilariously bad. But they make a very decent curry for hardly any money at all. So if you are looking for a back alley curry fix in Balham, Punjab House is the den for you.

Kastoori – Vegetarian Magic in Tooting

Our trip to Kerala and Goa opened our eyes to the world of vegetarian food. The range of interesting and complex dishes we had that contained no meat or fish was astonishing. By the end of our trip we had stopped thinking of food in terms of a piece of protein plus some veggies and instead just enjoyed what was in front of us. In Kerala it is meat eaters who are the odd ones out, to the extent that places that serve meat are referred to as “non-vegetarian”.

So when we arrived at Kastoori, a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Tooting, I got rather excited and tried to order almost everything on the menu. Luckily the waiter stepped in and very purposefully told me to not be greedy and calm down! Weirdly, I quite enjoyed being put back in my place by a stranger with a notepad and a mustache. Let’s hope it’s not a strange fetish that’s beginning to rise to the surface! Luckily the waiter did allow us to order two of the best named dishes I’ve ever come across: Dahi Puri and the “not-un-Star-Warsy” Dahi Vada which I imagined arriving with a light saber and black mask.

The Dahi Puri are one of Kastoori’s signature dishes. The menu describes them as “taste-bombs” which does a pretty good job of bringing them to life. Crispy shells are filled with “diced potatoes, chick peas, puffed rice, onions, pani sauce, sweet and sour sauce and topped with yoghurt sauce”. I can’t remember the flavours much, but the textural experience was sublime.

Dahi Vada was far more fun to ask for than to eat, which was to be expected. I found the yoghurty sauce a bit overwhelming and made a beeline instead for the bhajis…

… which were sensational. Crisp, savoury and no-where near as greasy as they tend to be. I even convinced Cowie to have one!

Our Kastoori Bhatura was a wonderfully inflated chipatti that resembled a bready woopy-cushion. Dipped in our array of sauces and spicy condiments, it was fantastic.

Whilst we were pottering around India I kept missing out on having a dosa. They are large, think, rolled up pancakes filled with savoury sauces. The masala dosa at Kastoori was visually arresting, but unfortunately the spiced potato filling and accompanying sambar wasn’t quite as exciting.

(Putting a slightly dull filling to one side, it has made me think that a dosa could make a fantastic left field appearance at next year’s pancake competition as a follow up to our Crispy Aromatic Pork Belly Pancakes this year.)

The star of the main course was a chilli banana dish that is spiced with red chillies, lubricated with tomatoes and inspired by Africa. It was a one of the most unusual things I’ve eaten and had us wondering what John Torode and Greg Wallace would have said on Masterchef if you’d served it to them. I can just hear Pudding Face “Tut-tutting” and saying, “No, no. This is all wrong”. But it worked. What a dish. It’s worth the trip to Tooting alone.

A bean-ball curry and vegetarian curry were both good, but suffered from being in the shadow of the chilli banana…

Desserts are always terrible in Indian restaurants, but we couldn’t resist ordering a couple to test the water. Jeffrey Steingarten singles them out as being one of gastronomy’s great mysteries – “they have the texture of face cream”. And he’s not far wrong.

Rice pudding with pistachio was like someone had tipped a can of Ambrosia into the microwave that I could see through the kitchen door and then crumbled some pistachios on top…

And the comically conical mango ice cream was clearly missing from the set of Babestation.

But the desserts were never going to be any good, so let’s just have a laugh and reflect on the fact that Kastoori is a brilliant, inexpensive restaurant, that happens to be both Indian and vegetarian. And luckily for us, just down the road. Just don’t arrive with a yearning for chicken tikka masala.

Tandoori Chicken

Every time we visit Cowie’s parents is another excuse/opportunity to experiment with Cassius, our clay oven. It has excelled at cooking pizza and roast lamb so we thought we’d see how it coped with tandoori chicken.

We took inspiration from Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe and just added more fire. The basic idea is to create a marinade from greek yoghurt, lime, garam masala, chilli, ginger, garlic and coriander. You blitz this together, add some salt and allow the marinade to tenderise the meat and penetrate the flesh with the Indian flavours. About 3 hours will do the trick, but over night is ever better.

Given that we were catering for 10 we needed 3 chickens so we had to par-cook the legs and wings in the aga and blasted the breasts in the Cassius when he was at full heat. We’ve not been able to measure the temperature yet, but it is way hotter than any oven I’ve ever used.

The breasts cooked in about 15-20 minutes. They emerged with a charred, spicy crust and dripping with moisture inside. It’s a great technique. It wasn’t a bad result given that it was our first attempt. Next time I’m going to add more chilli to the marinade and make some naans.

What shall we cook in Cassius next?

India – Afternoon tea and a very sordid Indian massage

Fort Cochin is a tranquil, colonial coastal town with a charmingly relaxed approach to life. It was the first port of call for our epic Indian adventure and didn’t fail to deliver some interesting stories!

Our afternoon started gently with a walk along the sea front to admire the Chinese fishing nets and get a feel for the coastline. These nets are one of the iconic features of the Keralan landscape – or so the Rough Guide told us. But to be honest they were a bit of a let down. We inspected one rig and were keenly encouraged to observe them haul in their whopping catch which consisted of one large pebble! Our chat with the head fisherman revealed the truth. These nets aren’t for catching fish… their main prey are tourists! And once you’re on one of these you’ve got to pay to get off.

As soon as we escaped from being strung up by the Chinese fishing net crew it started to rain. And not just any old rain. Each drop fell like a watery bomb soaking everything with its shrapnel. Wave after wave of damp artillery shells rained down on us to the extent that the gentleman in the picture below took pity on us and offered us his stall’s parasol as an umbrella. He escorted us through town like royalty to a quaint tea shop called Teapot. Before I’d had a chance to thank our umbrella man or give him some money for his kindness he’d disappeared like some sort of “angel of dryness” – one of India’s 36,000,000 Gods.

Cowie and I share many passions… but one of our strongest bonds has to be our mutual love of tea. I love tea as much as I used to hate Henry James’s “Portrait of a Lady” which famously begins,

“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”

Our very own Indian tea ceremony couldn’t have come at a better time… giving us respite from the pouring rain and allowing us a chance to plan the rest of our afternoon.

Teapot is mad. But brilliant It’s as if the Mad Hatter and the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland were in charge. It’s the kind of place that should be featured in travel magazines and TV programmes because it is so unusual and cool.

They have a collection of teapots from around the world ranging from the stylish white and blue set below…

to the kitsch but awesome Siamese set here.

But my favourite piece was their special tea clock which constantly says it’s “tea o’clock”. Step aside Pimms… Teapot got there first!

I loved the tea inspired sketches that adorned the crumbling walls almost as much as Cowie loved the tables that were made from tea chests.

Our afternoon tea which came with a slice of coffee and walnut cake was brilliant. They realised we were from British and served our tea in a London themed tea pot! So civilised and quaint it’s a memory that will stay with me forever.

Feeling greedy and curious (plus ca change) I ordered some Indian rarebits which aren’t particularly like Welsh rarebits! They’re a sort of deep fried eggy spicy savoury nibble that isn’t too far from being like a samosa or baaji. Very tasty indeed. Much more my cup of tea than Cowies!

Feeling recharged, dried out and utterly engulfed by Teapot’s charms we did something quite reckless… we went for a full body Indian massage. This may not seem terribly “out there” but if you carry on reading you’ll see why!

I’ve never been a big fan of massages… Cowie loves them but I don’t really like being touched very much. But what could possibly go wrong?

We walked next door to the Ayurvedic centre and booked ourselves in. Cowie was immediately whisked upstairs to the women only area and I was left downstairs to await my fate. I think my parting words to Cowie were, “I don’t really like being touched… but don’t worry they’ll probably just rub my shoulders a bit and it will be fine”.

A red faced Brit emerged with a big grin and an even bigger bounce to his step looking like he’d just emerged from a Formula 1 pit stop. No sooner than he had paid up and zoomed off than I had taken his place. I was led down a dark, narrow, dusty corridor to a low ceilinged room with some mosquitoes, a sordid black mattress and a hard wooden bench for company. It was as if I was about to be tortured by Jack Bauer.

A podgy Indian man wearing just an orange loin cloth instructed me to take my clothes off which I did automatically, but not completely enough for his liking. This was the first indication that I was about to get a bit more of a “full body” massage than I had bargained for.

Now naked, I was invited to sit on the hard wooden bench whilst two loin clothed Indian men rubbed “aromatic oil” into me from the front and behind. Now, I’m sure this oil has special therapeutic qualities but as far I could tell I was being basted in curry oil and prepared for the grill.

I struggled to keep a straight face as various naked men wondered through the room. I was wishing I was still having tea and cake next door! After they’d oiled me up and given my back and shoulders a go pounding I was moved to the black mattress on the floor which is when things started getting super weird.

It all began innocently enough with the men taking it in turns to do a series of rubs that travelled from the chest up to the hands and from the foot to the knee. My groin was off limits. But then it all got a bit odd. If you’re under the age of 18 look away now or get parental consent.

Whilst lying on my back they manoeuvred my legs vertically into a pseudo lotus position which left me terribly exposed. I felt like a trussed turkey. They played with various positions before I was allowed to lie normally again. But the relief was short lived.

You need to know that I was hanging to the left… so I was very anxious when the chap on my left started doing his sweeping massage moves that stretched the length of my body. To begin with it was fine. He took a wide berth around my groin and my raging fear subsided. But this caution didn’t last very long. Each time his hands smoothed past my groin the end of his finger very gently caught the end of my cock. The first time it happened I just ignored it and thought he must have made a mistake. But after this has had rhythmically happened for 5 minutes on the trot I was getting seriously worried! If I wasn’t careful I was going to get a stiffy in front of 2 naked Indian men who I’d never met! I could feel ever increasing amounts of blood flowing down south… I could feel my cock begin to lift ever so slightly off my leg. O my God. This was serious.

So I concentrated like I’ve never concentrated before and tried to think of something so un-sexual that it would put an end to the brewing disaster! My mind selected vegetables as it’s subject. WHY?!! Potatoes. Balls. Cucumber. Cock. Melons. Breasts. Banana. Cock. Orange. Boobs. Holy shit… we’re almost at half mast.

And then my mind stumbled across broccoli and cauliflower which seemed to work. Simply thinking about steamed broccoli and cauliflower cheese worked perfectly. I could feel the blood gushing out of my willy and crisis being averted. I simply can’t tell you how relieved was or how grateful I am to both cauliflowers and broccoli – they saved me from being utterly humiliated.

I emerged from my massage a broken man and was greeted with the world’s biggest hug from Cowie who couldn’t believe my ordeal, or that I didn’t just walk out! Travelling is all about collecting new experiences and trying new things that you can wheel out at dinner parties. I’ve now got an absolute show stopper up my sleeve!

Hopefully this now means I’ll never have to have another massage ever again! Unless we go to Thailand of course…

Zayna needs some customers…

Gilly has been raving about Zayna for the last month. In that time he has been 5 times. And is already planning his next visit! Gilly and the rest of his company have decided to adopt Zayna as their “pet” restaurant.

Tucked away on New Quebec Street in no-man’s land between Baker Street, Marble Arch and Edgeware Road, it’s passing trade is always going to be very minimal. The whole area is about as lively as The Millennium Dome. Frankly it’s brave opening a restaurant here. With hardly any natural footfall it means that the cooking has to be extraordinary for a restaurant to be successful. Look at Dinings for instance. It’s tucked away in the backwaters east of Edgeware Road and is almost impossible to find first time out… but it’s a brilliant restaurant. Having not seen their balance sheet I can’t comment on their economic success. But that said they are always busy and attract an audience from across London.

This evening Zayna was almost empty. Admittedly, we arrived for what can only be described as afternoon tea at 7pm… but it never actually got more than a sprinkling of custom all night. And it was a random Tuesday night. The image below from their website sums up the Mary Celeste atmosphere.

But the truth is this place should be rammed full. The food is incredible. It’s a great mix of robust Pakistani flavours, stylish cooking but without the pretense that accompanies some top end Indian / Pakistani restaurants.

We started with a small range of small dishes including a mixture of chickpeas with pomegranate and soured cream which was a very interesting and successful combination. A mango salad offered a fresh and tropical segue. And a spiced lamb chop was a hint of the culinary glory that was to follow.

But these little starters were only teasing us. Given that Gilly understands Zayna’s menu better than anyone on earth, we let him order. We were treated to three stunning dishes. Let me try to do them an iota of justice.

Steamed tilapia arrived in a candle warmed bowl, swimming in a delicate, fragrant coconut marsala. The fish eased apart like Obama walking through a crowd. Tilapia is one of my favourite fish. It brings back memories of gorging myself on it’s distinctive flesh in Ghana. It’s a fish that responds brilliantly to spices. It was interesting that it had been steamed first before being doused in sauce. Great dish. One that I’ve never seen on an Pakistani (or Indian)restaurant menu before. I can’t wait to order it again and have it all to myself.

A lamb curry provided a snapshot of what a good curry house should do well. What can I say really… the meat was great, the sauce was deep and tangy. And I wanted to pick the bowl up and and lick it clean!

But the real star of the show, and indeed, the star of Marylebone, was a prawn dish cooked with wine and garlic that had all three of us fighting for the last morsel. Oddly, it transported me not to the Subcontinent, but to San Sebastian. Rich, deeply garlicky and above all sensationally powerful. The prawns were the most succulent I have ever eaten and were worth the £33 for dinner along.

So. Dodgy location. Amazing food. Reasonable price. I feel like making it my mission to make sure Zayna is successful. If you’ve read this and like Indian/Pakistani food you’ve got to pay this place a visit. Because it is normally empty you’ll be guaranteed great service. I just can’t wait to go back for some more of their prawns!!!

Holy Cow – best Indian take away ever!

Balham just keeps getting better! I had assumed I had already written about how awesome the Holy Cow is on the road from Clapham South to Balham. But I hadn’t.

It’s our regular haunt. Our rock to lean on in hard times. Their curries are fantastic. Made with actual meat. Shock horror. And with real spices. And by proper people.

Rather than wait for the deliveryman… I normally walk over a few minutes before my curry is ready so I can watch the kitchen at work. It’s a very satisfying sight. Full of burly men from India and Pakistan adding ladlefulls of spices to frying pans of simmering chicken, lamb or fish. Everything is cooked to order by a small battalion of expert chefs. What’s more Mr Achariat (not quite right) who appears as a line drawing in the menu can be seen bossing his kitchen… shouting at his comrades and expertly cooking my Lamb Achari in record time.

My regular choice is their spiciest lamb option – number 31 if I remember rightly. It falls apart with the touch of a fork like a good lamb shank should. This is by far the best take away curry business I have ever come across.

Super Hot Stuff

Having read Jay Rayner’s review of Hot Stuff in the Observer a few weeks ago I seized the first opportunity that presented itself and dragged a whole bunch of friends down to deepest darkest Vauxhal for what turned out to be the best curry I’ve ever had.

A very diverse group of us are going skiing next week so it seemed like a good idea to have a pre skiing get together so we all make friends and get excited about zooming around on some snow. We tried to keep the 1850 and 1650 chat to a minumum given that South Lamberth isn’t exactly Fulham. Thank God!

On my way through Vauxhall to Hot Stuff I came across some really cool street art dangling from the top of a bridge. Really cool and a bit surreal.

The advanced party met at a very straightforward pub called the Gladstone which I was hoping was going to be situated opposite the Disraeli or the Queen Vic. No such luck. It was in fact directly opposite an enormous Sainsbury. Cowie had a lot of trouble finding us and landed up being picked up by a cabby from the Battersea Dog Home and delivered for free because he was fearful for her safety. Pearls and a trouser suit tend to stand out in the wasteland of Vauxhal.

We sloped off down the cul de sac to Hot Stuff for our 9pm reservation and fuelled up on beer and wine from the off licence next door. The restaurant is tiny. It probably seats about 25 people at a squeeze. The walls are covered in murals and a range of reviews that veer from the brilliant to the dazzling. This place has a long history of cooking great curry.

Our waiter was hillarious and very helpful. He gave us all menus and then said that he’d prefer it if we didn’t order from them. In fact he asked for them back and asked if we were happy for him to just serve us the food that his kitchen thought would suit us best! Who were we to argue!

A couple of metres of naan bread appeared which he balanaced very cleverly on top of our beer bottles. It was scorching hot and incredibly good. But not as brilliant as the starters that then appeared. Spicy paneer and chilli chicken were both delicious. As was the bowlful of enormous prawns. By this point we were already feeling quite full.

After a few minutes of banter from our waiter and a few trips to the very dodgy loo our main courses arrived relentlessly. A collection of dishes that I can’t even begin to describe or remember. The only one that I can clearly recall was a corriander lamb curry which I think may have been a dopiazza. It was gorgeous. And has since become my curry of choice. So long Rogan Josh. It’s been fun. But a tastier number has outdone you!

There was no fish on the menu. You have to visit them after Wednesday in the week for that treat. I simply can’t wait to go back and give it another go. It’s a brilliant find in a place that you’d never go. I’ve raved about it to everyone I’ve seen in the last week. It’s the kind of place that I’d like to lift up and plonk down on the end of Chivalry Road and then not tell anyone about!