Jump to content

Recommended Posts

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.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Where did I say he did a good job? Yup and Corbyn was very close to Len McCluskey and funded by Unite wasn't he...they're all as bad as each other... Labour have to purge their party of the far-left - they're a disaster. Allan Johnson summed it up so well on election night in 2019....  
    • Thank you for the detailed advise @trinidad It is definitely damage we are concerned about. I don’t think Evri would agree to pay the bill to fix our gate or letter box if they were to be damaged as a result of their delivery drivers helper. Our doorbell can be heard from outside when rung so we don’t quite believe the aggressive simultaneous door/letter box banging is necessary. It can be quite a shock it is done very aggressively.  I’ll definitely action the steps you’ve kindly provided along with a phone call tomorrow. I do sympathise with the role drivers have and how busy they are, which is why we tried communicating directly with her but sadly we haven’t succeeded 
    • What outcome would you like? Disciplinary action? Not to have the driver back? Retraining? I know there is alot of pressure on drivers to deliver within a set day. if he slams the gate, is it evidence he is causing damage, or is the noise a irritant to yourself? You could put a sign up or buy a signing asking to close the gate gentle???? can you hear the door bell from the door? he might be ringing, not hearing and therefore knocking. In trhe notes section of the be livery page, there is a note section, although there is not 100 per cent these notes would be read as these drivers are constantly rushing.  I did a google search for you, i found this and you can try the envri website Contact Us | Evri   To complain to Evri, you can follow these steps: Contact Customer Service: Call Evri's customer service at 0330 808 5456 for assistance with your complaint.    1 Write a Letter: Address your complaint to Capitol House, 1 Capitol Close, Morley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS27 0WH.    1 Use the Official Website: Visit the Evri complaints page on their official website for detailed instructions on how to submit a complaint.    2 Email or Call for Specific Issues: For issues like missing or damaged parcels, you can email or call 0800 988 8888, which is free to call.    1 These methods will help you effectively communicate your concerns to Evri.   My driver is called anthony, he is brilliant to be honest. I cant fault him.
    • When I have more time and energy, I will look up the actual number of votes cast for each party in that election, rather than the number of seats won. I'm interested to see that you apparently  think that  Boris Johnson did a good job of "leading the country through Covid." Is your memory really that short? I won't stoop to calling Johnson and his cronies names in the way that you seem to think is appropriate for left wing politicians. At least the left wing politicians have some semblance of morals and a concern for people who aren't in some over privileged inner circle and/or raking in money for themselves on the back of an epidemic. I'm not going to open a can of worms on here  by commenting on the disgraceful so called "purge". 
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...