Curry's gone down hill ?

Curry's what has gone downhill?

Hmmmm... well, the new Tesco curries certainly seem to have moved backwards, tastewise. M'n'S still do the best pre-packed micro curries IMHO.

John (who likes a lazy microwave curry of a Tuesday evening - Hot Balti tonight!)

The Waitrose ones are better than M&S!

Don't get Waitrose up here - or at least the last time I saw a Waitrose was when I lived in Wimbledon, circa 1995 or 1996...

John

Budgens do quite a good Lamb Rogon Josh and Chicken Jalfarzi - worth a try!

David

Shere Khan are the best.

Does anyone in the UK really live that far from even a bad takeout? With a gun down my throat I'd have to go Waitrose. Having developed something of an addiction to Fern's prawn flavoured balichow and garlic pickle, I can heartily recommend a ladle of both as a kick in the nuts for your bland curry.

We appear to be suffering some serious cross thread contamination on the apostrophe front.

Surely the apostrophe in Curry's shows that it would have read Curry Has, i.e. it replaces the "ha"

My point is you can't get a good Curry ANYWHERE,
since the advent of the Balti in the early 80's.
They all taste the same Tika here there and everywhere.
The best Curry's i ever ate were from Asian Sweet Centres specifcaly four on the Alum Rock rd in Birmingham.
All had an individual flavour of there own, and there was no menu either chicken or meat with rice or Chapati.

Old Chinese proverb say:

'Never open curry on top of hill'

For Curry,s read Curries yawn.

quote:

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Originally posted by alexgerrard:
Edwina?

The electrical shop?

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Yes Both.

Bigmick
Many Indian people would say that supermarket curries are improving, and in many cases are overtaking the quality of restaurant curries. The latter are often full of uncontrolled artificial colourings and other additives in unknown quantities with poor quality meat. So give me a supermarket curry over a poor quality take out any day.
Alex,
I can't really afford to shop at Waitrose every week either but for curry I make an exception.

London Indian Restaurants
Mrs Simon and I are slowly but surely working our way through the top end of Indian Restaurants. Besides the ones that Alex has mentioned, I would add the following:
- Zaika. Fantastic food and really nice surroundings.
- Chutney Marys. In a rather odd location in Chelsea but the food is great. You can't get a traditional curry here but 'Raj Cuisine' instead - a sort of weird combination of Indian and English.
However the best curry I have ever had was in Penang of all places. Sri Lanka and 'Curry in a Hurry' (Homerton) tie for worst ever.
Simon

IIRC The bloke from "Curry in a Hurry" was shot when delivering a Chicken Madras to a particularly dodgy set of flats in Hackney.

Matthew

Don't blame the messanger.

You could be right if one is really unlucky. I can only recall one absolute shocker some years ago in Brecon, the memory of which can still make me retch. Vishnu has obviously been smiling on me as I can't think of any other instant where I would have preferred supermarket, even Waitrose. I have obviously now jinxed my run.

As neither option is remotely authentic I guess it's horses for courses. Maybe I subconsciously need the spinning pickle tray, pint of frozen Kingfisher and the soothing drone of a distant tamboura.

Oh and I'm sort of with you about Sri Lankan curries; in my experience deathly dull. I lived in Dalston for quite a time and can picture curry in a hurry. IIRC and appropriately, just round the corner from the hospital

I think Sainsbury's rool for supermarket curries. Not only do you have their own excellent range, but they also carry the 'Bombay Brasserie' stuff [more gunge than meat compared to the own brand, but much more interesting recipes. All made by Noon Foods, as is Sainsbury's own, but then I think most supermarket curryiffic fare generally is]. Then there's the 'fresh' selection, if you are near one of Sainsbury's larger branches. Again, a different assortment, but, according to Mrs Lees's research, held hygenically under the most scrupulous conditions - if you're worried by cooked food exposed to air and warming cabinets - and in generous portions. Well worth a go. [Mrs Lees's opinion is worth a Michelin star in these matters, - trust me - and Mr Lees.]

M&S stuff is very nice, but I feel that it's sort of different yet enjoyable in its own right. Good quality [no gristley bits, natch], but very Anglican - and an inordinate amount of unauthentic cream, no matter what the dish.

TopCat- Waitrose have a branch in Mere Green in Sutton Coldfield - why is this not surprising?

throb

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TopCat- Waitrose have a branch in Mere Green in Sutton Coldfield - why is this not surprising?

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Don't get your meaning. Think I've only been to Sutton Coldfield once - last November (we were seeing Bowie at the NEC) - so I no nothing much of the place...

John

One of the best places for curries in my opinion used to be Khan's in Ladbrook grove[ I think]London but the owner died a few years ago and his son took over and things changed, I'm not sure what it's like now as we haven't been back up the "Smoke" for a few years. But for the record, as I remember all supermarket curries are nothing at all like the authentic curries my friends Mother used to make.They came from Bombay to the midlands in one jump, mind you it was quite a few years ago .
oldie.

The other annoying trend is for some restaurants (sic) and takeaways to use Bernard Mathews style re-constituted obviously pre-made in Milton Keynes chicken tikka

My missus used to go to M&S to get rice & curries, but it really didn't end up very much less than getting a take out. Maybe i'm lucky with my local places, but I do agree that the Balti was an unfortunate turning point.

Some Baltis can be very tasty its a way of cooking the food rather than a particular style of curry. A local pub (not THAT one!) does an extremely good range of Balti curries ranging from mild creamy ones to a firey hot one which is not for the faint hearted.

I think it all went downhill with that other 'authentic' curry the Chicken Tikka Massala!

Non-restaurant curries...

An Indian friend's son helps out with a Beaver group with Mrs S and seagull junior (Beavers are young Cub Scouts for those who don't know). She occasionally cooks them something authentically Indian when they are doing "badge work" about different cultures. Its funny, that's the one night when the parents don't just dump the kids and run, they hang around hoping that there will be some left over!

My sister in law is Thai, many years ago, when (Mrs S wasn't yet Mrs S) she cooked us a Thai meal. She asked us if we were sure we could cope. We said yes, no problem. It was the hottest meal I have ever had, definitely a "loo roll in the fridge" job. Despite the heat, it was also one of the tastiest I have ever had. She has since toned in down when we eat there and often serves English food

I have never had any curry in a restaurant to match the superb food cooked by these two ladies.

I live in Leigh, where Pataks have their factory. Up until the factory opening, the take-aways and restaurants in Leigh (of which there are many), all seemed to have their own particular style. For instance, a karahi from The Fort of Bengal would be very different from a Karahi from Sopna or Shabana. As soon as the factory opened, all the currys started to taste the same as the one I could buy from Asda or Sainsburys. There are now only a couple of places in town that seem to make their own currys. All the rest seem to be using the same base.

I now make my own currys. Thanks go out to Rick Stein for showing me how to make a demon Karahi!


MF

Regards

Mark ;0)

Well, the Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi seems to have taken a turn for the worse in almost every outlet.

First off, supermarkets can't do CTJ to save their lives. What they label as CTJ bears absolutely NO resemblance to the original article.

Trouble is, restaurants are going the same way. It's impossible here to get a CTJ that isn't slathered in Chicken Tikka Massala sauce -- which of course leads one to the conclusion that it IS Chicken Tikka Massala, with a few chillies thrown in. This obsession with drowning the finest dish in the Indian Restaurant canon in glop seems to have come about with punters complaining that their CTJs were "too dry -- be nice with a bit of sauce on it". Which is a bit like sending your water back because it's "too wet".

The last real CTJ I had was in The Broad Street Tandoori, in Bath, about five years ago.

Still, there's always the Lahore for Chicken Biryani, eh boys?

Cheers,

Tim
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Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho...

quote:

Originally posted by seagull:
Some Baltis can be very tasty its a way of cooking the food rather than a particular style of curry. A local pub (not THAT one!) does an extremely good range of Balti curries ranging from mild creamy ones to a firey hot one which is not for the faint hearted.

I think it all went downhill with that other 'authentic' curry the Chicken Tikka Massala!

I'm not sure how many of my Indian relatives (apart from those living in the UK) would have a clue what a "balti" dish is.

As an infrequent restaurant goer I don't have an opinion on the quality of Indian restaurants, these days, but perhaps authenticity is too strict a criterion. Judging by the inedible glop that was served up by most of the Indian restaurants I went to in the 1980s, edibility is quite an acceptable criterion as far as I am concerned. Besides, curry is so well established here that I think it's reasonable to speak in terms of an authentic British curry.