Hi SS,
Dips is quite salty, typical of many TA versions. Like I said, it was quite a difficult one to judge this one because once you have had a mouth full of one tikka, it was quite hard to cleanse your palette for the next mouthfull, and the taste's started to mingle into one by the end.
I agree, Blades is an excellent tikka. I remember the first time that I made it. for me, it was a eureka moment, so much so, that I took a sample to my local TA for them to try. Most of the staff were veggies but one who wasn't did try it and asked for the recipe (which I didn't give him) they're not very forth coming with their recipes, so i thought I could use the secret as currency to trade recipes. Nothing came of it.
I think after making Blades for so long, I was looking for a different flavour, which Dip's provided, for me at least. I suppose in the back of my mind was always, how would it fair in a main dish. Dips fits the bill perfectly, plus, no need to add further salt in the dish.
It was really too close to call except for maddurs which really was inferior by quite some way to the rest of them.
Ray