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For many years it puzzled me that if you wanted to upgrade in heat from Madras it was obligatory to have potato – Aloo – in the dish.
Obliging London curry houses used to do me a “Chicken Vind” (Aloo/potato free) but in recent years I have acquiesced and now accept potato in my curry without demur.
An important personal statement to make, I feel.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I can remember being about 10 or 11 years old and a friend of mine was telling me that Vindaloo was the hottest food
Mother was working evenings and Father was in charge of cooking. I begged him to buy us all a Vindaloo, he said we wouldn’t eat it but gave in after about half an hour of trying to convince him we would eat it
Think I managed about two mouthfuls…
Tried it again in young adulthood but simalar resultBlackbeard to conquer the World
A genuine Phall is even hotter.
A couple of friends once ordered one in a Finchley curry house and the waiter actually begged them to choose again.
They were drunk and insisted and the mere smell of it cooking, wafting up from the kitchen, made their eyes water.
Upon eating it, one of them got an ear bleed.
Coincidence?
Who knows?
No medical man, I.
But it’s a true story.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Potatoes and rice don’t mix IMO: one or the other but never both
I perform the polite rigmarole of studiously studying extensive menus but invariably end up ordering a Chicken Korma on Pilau Rice with Onion Bhaji starter if particularly peckish
I am not a foodie, pub grub is king
In 1968 I didn’t have a ticket for the reading room of the British Museum like Karl Marx, and Lenin (who signed in under the name Jacob Richter) and anyway it was a fifteen minute Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( who like Bram Stoker also had a ticket ) foot slog to Bloombsbury.
Now many lunchtimes I would actually experience Das Kapital by popping into India House and queuing up with my futuristic 1984 tin tray to pick up the staple curry and rice of the day. There was no choice, could have been. Volkswagen and chips but I would have eaten it, and didnt have to worryingly select the bland curry from a menu. I joined mainly Indians on long benches and possibly enjoyed the Nan bread Marx was always banging on about – the exploitation of labour. I think it was 50 bob.
Other days I would eat nothing and just stroll along the side of the Thames with that rather depressingly tasteless Winston (1984) quote in my head‘I dont think we can alter anything in our lifetime.’
Heat in a curry house curry does depend on the attitude of the customer.
I recall my brother-in-laws stag do where we finished the night in a curry house. Because we were a large group we ended up on separate tables. The table I was on was relatively quiet, the other table, which included the groom and my dad, was much rowdier.
Dad and I ordered the same curry but because he was on the rowdy table his came out twice as hot as mine …. I tried a mouthful of his and even I couldn’t manage it and I have an asbestos mouth – the moral don’t sit on the rowdy table in a curry house.
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I used to have to visit Bradford a great deal in the days when I did boring IT work, obviously it is home to countless curry houses. I quickly learned the best and most authentic curries were served in the café style, Formica topped, shared table curry houses (the same applies in Brick Lane in London)
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The best curry house I’ve been to was in Jaffa. We only found it because I was tired. We had gone for an evening stroll from Tel Aviv to Jaffa, as usual the hawkers were outside all the restaurants trying to tempt you in.
We eventually came to this curry house and the manager was outside. We were tired but said we didn’t fancy a curry. He asked where we were from and we told him. He said he only served authentic curries nothing like the stuff you eat in the UK. Mrs O asked how hot the food was, he replied “as hot as you want it” and he explained the “heat” is served as a side dish and you can add as little or much as you want. We we still sceptical then he said, come in, order what you want and if you don’t like it I will not charge you ….. seemed a fair deal.
Well we gave it a go and thank goodness we did, the food was sublime, nothing like a western curry and we became “regulars” whenever we visited Israel.
One year we couldn’t get away for a week for my birthday, like we normally do. So we booked a day trip to Israel just to go for a curry. Israeli security took some convincing we were only going for a curry but I expected this and had booked in advance and the owner vouched for us, plus the fact we were regular visitors to the country helped. Sadly the owner passed away a few years ago and with his passing the restaurant closed.
Great stuff, gamble and Paul.
My favourite curry house remains The Lahore Kebab House just off the Commercial Road.
First went in 1990 when it was just a little cafe much of the surf Paul describes.
More commercialised now but their Chicken Korai with tandoori roti breads and chilli-infused mint sauce on onion salad (lamb sheekh kebabs to start) remains my all-time favourite meal of this type.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"When I graduated from university my parents took me and my siblings out for a meal. They asked me where I wanted to go, I said the Indian restaurant, and even my brother who isn’t a fan of curries was happy because it was my day and my choice, and I wanted to enjoy it with food I really like. My university classmates didn’t get it at all. They were all going to five star hotel restaurants and award winning restaurants. My actual friends in university all did get it, indulge in the things you like for your day, which is why only one or two of my friends in uni were classmates. It’s not about primping and preening and doing what people think is “important” for special occasions, it’s about doing the things you love.
There’s still some award winning restaurants I’d love to go to around me, a few with Michelin stars. Those days will be about the food, with no distractions. If I have another reason to celebrate something in a restaurant it’ll be right back to the Indian.
This is a hijack stick ‘ em up and forget the curry !
I once delivered flowers to a 45 year old Lauren Bacall who was staying at the Athenium Hotel in Mayfair. I told reception that I had a personal message from the sender. They more or less told me to get my *rse up there.
” I have some flowers for you and just wanted to say that Casablanca is one of my favourite films.”
Thank you very much
Smile
Click.Visited a curry house in Ashby De La Zouch back in the 1980’s with a group of lads and we asked the waiters what was the hottest dish they served. It was a Chicken Phal and they gave us a small dish for us to try. No word of a lie it made my lips numb. Someone mentioned we should all throw in a couple of quid to anyone who finished off the sauce and a mate took up the challenge and wolfed it down in ten seconds flat. Within less than a minute he wasn’t a pretty sight and when we next saw him a few days later he said it was just as hot coming out the other end
A genuine Phall is, by all accounts, the real deal in hot curries.
Sadly, the only time I ever ordered one off a menu it was palpably a fake – I have had hotter Madras’s.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"In my single days, when I lived in Cardiff, I used to have chilli and curry parties.
I would cook about ten different chillies and curries ranging from no heat, through to the one I called Montezuma’s Revenge, which left your mouth feeling like you’ve been to the dentist and would exit the other end with a very “warm glow”.
Well one of these parties I invited some work colleagues. Amongst them a girl named Sue who was your quiet, mousy librarian type who wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
I assumed she would gingerly try the zero heat one, how wrong I was – virtually nobody else got a look in with the Montezuma’s Revenge ….. I was so impressed. If she hadn’t already been married I think I would have married her myself, my opinion of her changed in an instant.
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