Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: Old Trousers on September 22, 2012, 11:24 AM
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Hi
This is just by way of a follow on from my first introductory post earlier today.
I just wondered what other members' first experiences of BIR curry was like. I mean the first time you remember going to a BIR restaurant, what the occasion was, what you ate etc?
For me, I remember almost exactly - it was in 1982 I think, aged 13, after going with my sister and brother in law to watch ET at the cinema. Not having a clue myself, my brother in law ordered for me, and very kindly made it a basic chicken curry, nothing too hot. It was just wonderful, and over the years I became a regular customer of the restaurant in question. I like the hot stuff better now of course!
The story has a less than happy ending though, which may be familiar with others' experiences: After a longish break when I lived elsewhere, I ended up at the end of my stag night a couple of years ago dragging my mates to this restaurant, fully expecting another wonderful curry experience. Nothing could have been further from the truth! The place was run down, empty on a Saturday night (which should have been a clue but I was a bit the worse for wear by then), and food was just terrible. Bit of a let-down to say the last. About a month later it closed, soon to be replaced with a modern-looking eatery that I haven't dared try yet.
Oh well, at least I have the memory of that first fabulous curry - ET phone for takeaway!
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I just wondered what other members' first experiences of BIR curry was like. I mean the first time you remember going to a BIR restaurant, what the occasion was, what you ate etc?
My memories are very vague (probably because they go back to the '60s) but include the Maharajah of Chislehurst [1] (where a friend used popaddoms as a condiment, and sprinkled them on his meal), the other Indian restaurant in Chislehurst (name forgotten, but introduced me to egg pulao and chilli pickle), one in Orpington (where I had a whole spring chicken stuffed with keema and boiled eggs for lunch one day : Murgh-e-masalla), one at London Bridge, where I used to go for lunch while studying at the Borough Polytechnic, one in the Finchley Road (where I used to go for lunch while working at Westfield College) and one in Nottingham [2] where I used to go for lunch while on loan to John Player. All very different, and the last had an amusing side effect : it was used almost entirely by people from the sub-continent, and I soon fell into their way of eating, using the chapatti in the right hand to pick up everything and eschewing spoon and fork. When I finally returned from Nottingham, and was enjoying a nice English lunch in the dining car of a B.R. train, I could not understand why people were staring at me, until I realised that my knife, spoon and fork lay unused at the side of my plate and I was eating everything with my bare right hand !
Oh, and I nearly forgot : an 2-storey Indian restaurant in Smallbrook Ringway, that claimed to have the first tandoor in Brum, and the Agra in Whitfield Street, where I discovered tandoori chicken and to which I returned every Saturday evening for month after month after month. Those were the days : I can still remember the thrill of biting into a green cardomom for the first time, and the pleasure I continued to get every time I bit into one for years after that. Sadly they no longer have the same psychological/physiological effect :'(
** Phil.
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[1, 2] Each owned by a Mr Chowdhury, but neither was related to the other as far as either knew.
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I think my first curry was as a treat from my parents for doing well in my school exams that year. I can't recall the name of the BIR but it was on the Bristol road, just up from Birmingham University.
The only thing I remember about the curries was the one my mom ordered for herself. I tasted a bit and nearly spat it out it was so cloyingly sweet, with a distinct taste of Nestle evaporated milk (which I hated). Can you guess what it was? Korma, of course.
I hated Korma then and I hate Korma now, not even considering it fit to be called a curry (in its BIR guise). It was left uneaten.
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I don't recall my first BIR per say but it would have been with my parents back in the mid 80's. I do remember however, the dish I would have eaten, and in stark contrast to SS, was the Chicken Korma. Mind you, i've said this before, the restaurant we ate in was the Indian Garden and to this day, only one other restaurant has ever produced a Korma as good.
That said, the two most memorable dishes I do remember were my first tastes of the IG Karahi Chicken and Lamb Dopiaza. These were days of revelation and I never looked back.
It's making me hungry now!
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Oh how this brings back memories, it was the summer of 1979, at a packed Indian ,"the Harpenden Tandoori", in the high street, guess where!!. I had a butter chicken along with rice etc, but the butter chicken was out of this world and probably why i try to replicate the curries i had back then, without success, i may add!.That butter chicken, i can still taste it (methodically speaking). By gum, what a fabulous restaurant, but like everything, it went down hill and eventually became a Thai, which i might add is also brilliant and long may it stay that way.
Andy
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My first real BIR was a chicken balti from 'Daves Balti House' in Telford.
What? no spoon?, Eat by using the naan bread?
never looked back...
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I remember my first BIR ever very well. I was working in Allied Carpets in Hayes Middlesex, as a delivery driver back in early 1979 and one of the salesman (Peter Lacey), went and got an Indian takeaway for lunch one day and bought it back into the store. I asked him what it was and he said, Lamb Korma would you like to try some?
I only had a couple of mouthfuls, but was hooked from that moment on. Spent a few years on Korma before moving onto Lamb Bhuna, (I was always a lamb person back in those days as the flavour far outweighed the Chicken dishes)....
The rest is history ;D ;D
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1972
I took my mum for a curry, with my first wage packet
I'd never had anything like it in my life
The music, the decor, the accents, the aromas, I was in a state of severe culture shock
The only part of the meal I can clearly remember was Bombay Duck
Duck but it's a fish?
The restaurant was on Portland Road, South Norwood
I can't remember it's name
My next major stage in Asian culture, was seven years later when a friend started taking me to Indian cafes
No cutlery!!
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The only part of the meal I can clearly remember was Bombay Duck
Ah, Bombay Duck : where has it gone ? I remember it from that era too, but it seems to have completely disappeared from the scene ...
Afterthought : probably banned under the Trade Descriptions Act, along with Scotch Woodcock :(
** Phil.
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The restaurant associated with the take away which I frequented afterwards was the Palash Tandoori on Station Road, Hayes next to Barclays Bank. Just prior to that, it was the Appolonia, Greek Restaurant, which was owned by my best Friend's (at the time) dad. This is where I got my Greek cooking experience from :)
His dad sold the restaurant to the Indian's and moved down to Salisbury...
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I can't really remember the first and as a kid our family always went for Chinese if we had a takeaway.
So it wasn't until I went to uni in Preston that i tried curry. The first one that sticks in my mind was a curry that I was given after a wedding.
My landlord at this point was a Pakistani with a string of student housing and when he needed some work doing he'd give me a call and I 'd do various decorating jobs on the side. One day he came round and asked if I wanted a few quid for cleaning up after a wedding. I was always skint at this time and readily agreed. The job was to clean the giant pots with a hose and didn't take long. Along with my pay I was given 3 2-litre tubs of pilau rice and 3 of curry sauce. It was delicious, blisteringly hot and had apparently been cooking for a few days. All the meat had disintergrated, leaving just sauce and bones. The pilau rice had 6 inch long bits of cinnamon which blew me away at the time. My landlord confessed that he'd found it too hot for him. He said it was a vinderloo but it obviously bares no resemblence to any BIR or traditional version I've ever seen.
I finished all the pots and even though it was far too spicy for me at the time. I remember sweating, trembling and my vision going funny, it was just too good to waste.
T
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I remember very clearly my first BIR curry. It was 1985. A takeaway brought home by my Dad and the aroma when he opened it up was out of world. It was chicken Ceylon, bright yellow in colour and (to my uninitiated palate) eye wateringly hot. Prevalent flavours were coconut, ginger and coriander (plus the chilli heat). Texture was fairly thin and runny. There was nothing sweet about the flavour.
The yellow colour can only have come from food colouring but even so I doubt there was any tomato ingredients or paprika,etc. certainly it was nothing like the brown / red modern Ceylon dishes.
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Prevalent flavours were coconut, ginger and coriander (plus the chilli heat).
Was this coriander as in seed, leaf or stalk, do you recall ? It is a lot to ask, because I would have no idea after this amount of time, but as you remember so clearly you may be able to decide amongst the three. I ask because I gave up using (ground) Coriander seed in my curries some time ago, and occasionally wonder what I am missing. I am also increasingly aware from tasting Mrs Athwal's assorted Indian snacks that there are /far/ more spices in the Indian arsenal than I suspect most of us use on a regular basis ...
** Phil.
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The only part of the meal I can clearly remember was Bombay Duck
Ah, Bombay Duck : where has it gone ? I remember it from that era too, but it seems to have completely disappeared from the scene ...
Afterthought : probably banned under the Trade Descriptions Act, along with Scotch Woodcock :(
** Phil.
I remember my dad bringing this home in his take away. I think it disappeared for health and safety reasons and just never came back (thankfully many would argue).
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I think it disappeared for health and safety reasons
Odd, really, when you think that the sole reason for its invention was Elf-'n'-Safety (i.e., to allow those far from the coast to enjoy fish throughout the year) !
European Union import restrictions
In 1997, Bombay duck was banned by the European Commission (EC) of the European Union. The EC admitted that it had no "sanitary" evidence against the product and the UK Public Health Laboratory Service confirmed that there were no recorded cases of food poisoning, or bacterial contamination, associated with Bombay duck. It was banned because the EC only allows fish imports from India from approved freezing and canning factories, and bombay duck is not produced in factories. Before the ban, consumption in the United Kingdom was over 13 tonnes per year.
According to "The Save Bombay Duck campaign",[3] the Indian High Commission approached the European Commission about the ban. The EC adjusted the regulations so that the fish can still be dried in the open air but has to be packed in an "EC approved" packing station. A Birmingham wholesale merchant located a packing source in Mumbai, and the product became available again in the United Kingdom.
Bombay duck is available fresh in Canada in cities with large Indian populations, such as Toronto and Montreal and is generally known as bumla. Although mainly popular with Indians from Bengal, southern Gujarat, coastal Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka, it is increasingly consumed by the other South Asian populations, Bangaladeshis in particular.
** Phil.