Curry's gone down hill ?

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
_____________________________

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.

I am aware of the Balti's origins, and the seemingly ubiquitous (and generally turgid) CTM hence the quotes around 'authentic'

The best curries I caan remember having were from a small cluster of restaurants in Bristol (over 20 years ago now!)

Having said that we do have one decent Tandoori restaurant locally run by the same family for the last 20 years . We used to live a couple of doors up from the owners and still get excellent food and service there.

IMHO their are no good curries, either take away or sit in, and especially supermarket ones, anywhere to the south of Yorkshire. Greatest curry I ever had was in Inverness. Starters, sundries, Main meal and sweets were brilliant. Unfortunately I can't recall the name of the restaurant.

Yours in Music

Syd

Many a good curry to be had in Glasgow !!

I'd say I've never had a good curry from a supermarket. Not that they were all bad, but not good either.

As for restaurants it depends on the type:

Curry houses - frequented by people before, during or after a piss-up and found everywhere across britain. Theyre all naff, but thats to miss the point of them.

Sweet centre type places, usually lots of asians there too, find them in Bradford ('Sweet Centre' on Lumb Lane), Leicester, Birmingham, London's East End. This is the place to go if your sober and want a regular decent curry, usually dont cost much more than curry houses either. I call 'em sweet centre places, as often they also sell asian sweets out front.

Proper indian resaurants: If you really want the best currys. Here the dishes are individually prepared, in the above two examples most of the time all the curries are prepared from the same basic masala (curry sauce) they just add a bit of yoghurt/cream, decorate with a few extra peppers or bang it into a balti dish to get the variations. But if you go to a proper restaurant they will serve you up with real jalfrezis that dont taste like masalaa. E.g. Gaylord's in Manchester, Star of India in London.

But if you really want the best curry, then look into a cook book and make your own or better still just ask an asian person to tell you how to make it!

Glasgow is pretty poor for good curries, the best place being Mother India (they can be a bit inconsistent, though). Nearly all of the other places just do the universal sauce type of dish - I suppose that some of them are quite good at it (Shimla Pinks, the Ashoka etc) but it just doesn't compare to the type of curry you can get at, say, Suruchi in Edinburgh. They do proper, regional, Indian cuisine.

We've given up on restaraunt curry some time back. We made the mistake of buying a Madhur Jaffrey cook book, now we're buggered! Curry of one form or another is cooked in our house 5 days a week, I even have to refit the sodding kitchen around curry cooking! Anyway Ms Jaffrey's books come highly recomended by us and our Indian friends.
Have to admit that Tesco do an excellent pillau rice in thier take out range.