Kia Ora,
            I'm from Christchurch in the South Island and this city is absolutely over-run with indian restaurants. Some are brilliant and some are absolutley craphouse!! ie Taste of Bengal  (anybody else from chch nz been there?). The nicesest place I've been to is called Two Fat Indians they are a resaurant and takaway. A bit more expensive but worth it if you can spare the coin  . Tandoori Palace is a well to do chain that has started in CHCH and branching onto the rest of NZ including North Island. They produce consistantly decent curries d (tho not brilliant). It is their curries I use as a yard stick with which to judge other restaurants by. To date Two Fat Indians make the tastiest curry i have ever tried. There is a chain called Shamiana which is in the eateries in shopping malls. Their carries are reasonably tasty but again not superb. I once made the mistake of orderirng a Hot vindaloo from a place called Raj Mahal. Ooohhh boy that was an experience i was almost hallucinating  . They used a lot of potato in the vindaloo and are the first resaurant I've come accross using potato in a vindaloo. Little India are also a chain. They have a masssive resaurant in the middle of the city and produce a nice curry. Another chain resaurant "Tulsi" is quite new here. I have been once, had the vindaloo. it was very tomatoey and lemony but nice. As you can see there are heaps to chose from and I have not listed all the restaurant/takeaways in CHCH. The only place you can watch the cooks (that i've seen) making the meals is at Tandoori Palace. I have watched them a few times (they move very fast!!) they always have a big pot of onion sace on the go. Once i saw a big pot of onion halves boiling on the gas ring (i assume they were making the sauce) there didn't seem to be anything else in there but carrot etc may have been on the bottom out of siight. One thing that intrigued me was the pot of red sauce next to the onion sauce pot. I have noticed there is not a lot of dicussion on this board about this or do they not have this in the UK? they use it when making the madrass and vindaloo etc.
I bought a vindaloo the other night from TD and decided that there was three main flavours: tomato, lemon and cumin + chilli i will try to replicate this in the future.

Yo Dudes,
                  Hey wot a great message board!! I can't beleive there are other people out there as obsessed as i am at trying to perfect the home cooked restaraunt curry!! I live in New Zealand so hopefully i can contribute a little with a slightly different perspective. I have never been outside this fair county let alone had a curry overseas BUT... Christchuch (the city I live in ) has LOADS of indian resaraunts and takeaways. I can't really understand how some of them stay in business because some of the curries served at these places are TERRIBLE!! That aside there are some places that have beautiful dishes and I am doing my darndest to replicate them at home. My suspicion is that the curries served in our curry houses are roughly the same as your BIR curries, given that the majoity are delicious and they all have those classsic BIR names for the dishes. They definitley all have this special something you all talk about aiming for ie THAT taste. My thought is (and i know its been said before) is that it is recycled oil from previous dishes. Now I don't think this is the end of it either since all the oil does is carry flavour from previous dishes. The flavour has to be there to start with BUT... I do think those flavours mellow with heat and time. The reason i suspect these things is manifold one being this:  ever walk past an asian takeaway joint and wonder how those places get to smelling like the do? I rekon it's the repeatedly reaheated oil that has little bits of everything floating in it such as little bits of pastry from wantons and spring rolls etc plus all the flavours from these foods have leached intyo the oil and mellowd over time. I suspect the same thing happens with indian spices and other ingredients mellowing in hot oil over time. now the other important reason was this: one time I was carefully watching an indian chef cook my dinner and I saw him do something remarkable but thought nothing of it at the time. He would skim off excess oil from my dish and put it into the little plastic container in front of him. This is the same little plastic container he originally dipped into to add oil to MY meal at the begging of making my madras. So in this restaraunt, the oil going into each dish had been, at some time, been in a whole miriad of other dishes and possibly in the onion sauce and red sauce pots as well. This would lead one to presume that this is where the secret is coming from and why the flavour is so difficult to acheive at home. But the recipe methodology and ingredients have to be there to begin with. All this theory is doing is taking the emphasis off this silly idea of a secret ingredient. I hope this is of some use to someone. my sugestion to anyone trying to prove my hypothesis, is to take a little bit of oil from every dish you make say a tablespoon or two per every serving and add it to the next dish you make ; )    yum thats gotta help.