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There. I've said it.


I can tell my Ardbeg from a Laphroig so I don't think I'm completely senseless.


But apart from Tandoori Nights and Bombay Bicycle Club can anyone (other than Michael P) really tell the difference between Surma/Dulwich Tandoori/Pistachio Club/Mirash/Jafflong offerings? Am I alone in thinking they all taste much the same?

Well sort of, I think that Jaflong is a bit different.


Mirash is the epitome of traditional curry house and my favourite of old; however they are pretty much the same; it just depends what your own personal tastes are; as the best part of 2 years worth of curry club meetings have evidenced.

Yep- to be clear I've not tried 90% of all dishes on all curry houses - as most have about 50 odd choices variants on the menu but I've tried most places at least once and like for like there's nothing to choose beteween them....you may as well roll a dice. Why go to any particular one?


Keef - you are getting to the crux of it. A USP. Tandoori nights differs in that it seems less fatty, fresher and tastes better. It also seems to do better by conciously NOT having a delivery service?

You only have to look at Babur's menu (the restaurant though, not the takeaway/home delivery) to see how the LL establishments are practically clones of each other... I have this fancy that at dead of night a huge tanker, like a petrol tanker, inches slowly along LL, stopping at intervals to connect a thick black rubber hose to each curry house and pump a fresh week's supply of "Basic Indian Sauce" into their basements....

I've completed a training course in Anglo-Indian-style curry and tandoor cooking at a leading Indian restaurant in London.


Of course the dishes all taste the same - they are made to the same (secret) recipes passed down from Bangladeshi chefs to their apprentices throughout the country.


Ever wondered how any dish from over 100 menu choices can be prepared within five to seven minutes? It's because they are all made from a handful of basic, pre-cooked ingredients that are assembled in an iron skillet and fried at high temperature until the oil separates from the sauce.


A typical curry house uses only six spices: coriander, cumin, paprika, turmeric, cayenne (chilli) pepper and black pepper and three or four aromatics: malabathrum (Indian bay leaf), cinnamon, cardamom and star anise. The rest is mainly onions, bell peppers, garlic, ginger, desiccated coconut, almond powder and tomato paste. Korma and massala dishes are thickened with single cream (UHT LongLife).


Balti dishes are the same as regular dishes with a tablespoonful of Patak?s Balti Curry paste.


As for "fresh ingredients" ? virtually every Anglo-Indian restaurant in London gets its supplies from a handful of Bangladeshi-owned cash-and-carry warehouses in Bermondsey and East London. All meat, fish and seafood is frozen.


Incidentally, the staff would rather die than eat the food they serve to customers - the chefs prepare genuine Bangladeshi curries for the staff's end-of-day meal!

What an education we get here! Thanks for that!

A mate used to live in Southall and taught me the trick that you should only go to the little restaurants you see the locals going to. Same can be said for Chinese and so on.

I don't have a sophisticated experienced enough palate to know the best Indian food, but this thread has taught me alot!

Must try Ganapati since everyone creams over it...

... and , at least in the early days, many of the Chefs came from the same area of Bangladesh and so shared the same basic recipes.


Still, the food tastes good. I cant help thinking that an expectation that they can serve the quantities that they do and hand prepare all from fresh ingredients is a tad naive.

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