Curry Adventures in Bloomsbury



Curry: Britalicious



Fear not readers, it's back to some irreverent rubbish today, after last Friday's political rant.

A few nights ago, I went for a drink and a meal with an old friend in Bloomsbury. After a few ales in some choice establishments, we both fancied a curry.

Bloomsbury is a good place to grab a curry if you like an old school, proper Indian Restaurant (actually run by Bangladeshis, as most Indian restaurants tend to be in the UK- you'll know that of course, as it's one of those things everyone knows). I love the classy, modern and authentic Indian food you can find in abundance these days, especially in London. But now and then, I just want an old school curry from an old school restaurant.

The restaurants I'm talking about don't do poncy 'fusion' dishes. They don't have 10 different type of dahl or specialise in regional cuisine. What they do have though, are curries.

They tend to have very few dishes you'd actually find in the sub-continent itself in fact - these 'traditional' dishes being invented here or Anglicised to our palate.

 

The odd tandoori mixed-grill, side-dish, Balti and Biriyani selection and a few 'chef's specialities' also tend to adorn the menu of the old school curry house. But the core of the menu is always the below classics, ordered by heat-scale:

• First is the mildest, for children and the uninitiated - Korma
  (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).
• Next the mild generically-named Curry (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).
  
• Spot of creamy, medium-spiced lentils with the Dansak
  (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).


• Then comes the slightly spicier, tomato-based Rogan Josh
  (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).


• Now we get into the hot stuff - spicy Madras  (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).


• The old favourite of the boys' night out comes next - Vindaloo (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).


• And finally, only for the pissed and/or ignorant, we finish with the sphincter-destroying Phal
  (Chicken, Lamb, Prawn or King Prawn).

There is just something warming, nostalgic and heartening about seeing an Indian restaurant menu still set out like this, don't you think?

As such, we ventured inside the first restaurant we came across - We will call this "Bad Tandoori". You may not have noticed, but I have cleverly concealed the real name of this establishment, as I don't want to get in trouble for suggesting they might serve low-quality food, as I'm about to.



Bad Tandoori: Bad.

Now, since we wanted a bit of old-school curry house, we also expected to see another old favourite section on the menu, "English Dishes."
It amazes me that today there are still people who go to an Indian restaurant and can't find themselves anything to eat amongst the 'foreign muck', so plump for a mushroom omelette or chicken & chips.

But nonetheless, you still see these dishes available on most old-school menus and people must thus be ordering them. Each to their very backwards own.

But something even more unusual than egg & chips caught my dining partner's eye on this section of Bad Tandoori's menu. See if you can spot it from the below picture.

English Dishes: Unnecessary.

Yes, that's right - it's number 105 - "Spaghetti Hoops in Tomato Sauce".

My friend enquired, tongue-firmly-in-cheek of course, if the spaghetti hoops were served on toast?
"No", was the blunt answer from the waiter. I informed my friend that it clearly said that the "English & Continental" dishes were served with chips, peas & tomatoes, if he had read the menu.

But the waiter then corrected me - "No, only the omelette comes with these."
My friend continued - "So, it's just a bowl of spaghetti hoops? On it's own?"
"Yes sir."

Hmmm. So your £4.95 bought you a microwaved bowl of spaghetti hoops in tomato sauce, probably purchased from Lidl 2 years ago for 20p.

Given their curries were quite reasonably priced, we didn't like the idea they might be working to the same profit margins on the meat they were buying. So we slinked out. Always an embarrassing thing to do, but thankfully this time not because I realised I couldn't afford it.

The table next to us heard the whole conversation. Clearly not appreciating they might about to be fed maggot-infected meat and rotting onions, they gave us very funny looks as we left.

That this conversation with the waiter about spaghetti hoops had caused us to reject the entire establishment obviously bemused them. They probably wondered why we were so precious about spaghetti hoops, and thinking if we wanted spaghetti hoops on toast, why we had come into an Indian Restaurant?

One thing I do regret is that we didn't really give Bad Tandoori a chance. An Indian Restaurant should not really be judged on it's spaghetti hoops. Plus we didn't even try their spaghetti hoops. They might have been really nice. And I quite like spaghetti hoops to be honest.

Around the corner though, we soon found another establishment - the Tavistock Tandoori. This one had all the old classics, plus a very tasty chef's special that I lapped up gratefully.

Good Tandoori: Good.

It was actually a really, really great curry. I'd recommend it to anyone. Except if you were looking for spaghetti hoops. They didn't have spaghetti hoops in the Tavistock Tandoori.

If you are looking for spaghetti hoops as a curry accompaniment, your quest is on to discover the real name of Bad Tandoori. I won't be telling you where it is.

 
One day when I'm feeling flush, I may return to Bad Tandoori and order the spaghetti hoops just for the hell of it.