Takeaway

[extrahotchillie]

Well People

At the moment we are decorating our house so I haven't been able to cook a curry, after several days of withdrawal symptoms my need for spice was overwhelming and I decided on a takeaway.

Chicken tikka pieces, chicken madras & pillau rice, let me tell you people I could have cooked better blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back. I am now totally convinced that I can cook better that these jokers out there, and I suggest that most of the people on this site can as well.

That was definitely my last ever takeaway, I have cooked for people in the past as we all have and every time they have told me that if they could cook curries like I do they would never buy a takeaway again, well I ain't buying anymore either, absolute total rubbish, from a takeaway that I thought was the dogs nadgers.

Keep up the good work people, we don't need to be searching for a missing link, there isn't one, and I believe that when some of these jokers hit on this site and start using our recipes only then will get a decent takeaway.

There are too many of these jokers setting up takeaways and they haven't got a clue how to cook, and this also goes for a lot of Chinese as well, one has recently opened near me and they do Chinese, Thai & Pizza, and I've been told they are a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Like I said the meal I had was from a long established takeaway and they have gone way down in my estimation, no more will I part with my hard earned cash to feather these peoples nests, its good old fashion fish & chips for my takeaways and I'll cook the curries.

So I leave you with a thought, "keep cooking and stop searching".   

[Curry King]

I here what your saying I get the same feeling from some of the places i've been to recently.  The problem is I will have a curry from one of my fav BIR's and I will be gutted because of how good it is    

There is a major differnce in quality around where I live ranging from fantastic to bloody horrible and I would put mine somewhere in between 

[raygraham]

Hi All,

Yes I quite agree with you C.K and Extrahot ,

It's funny really how quality varies so much from take-away to take-away and region to region.

I was in Wakefield last week on a course and right near the hotel was an Indian take-away of the McDonalds style, it was called Abdul's. It had a long counter, your order was input on a computer which sent it to the chef for preparation. Everything was being made a couple of feet away in front of you. There were even boxes for kids of the "happy meal" type for their food to go in.
Not that it sold burgers but it was mainly a take-out and not eat in and it was very busy every night. In fact there were queues forming 6 deep right from opening time to late at night.
Seeing that and getting a recommendation from a colleague gave me the excuse I needed to try it out.

One good thing was you could see close at hand what was being done and what was being used. There were about 8 chefs, 3 huge cookers with 6 rings on each and enough frying pans on the go to feed an army. This was curry cooking production line style!

I ordered a Chicken Jalfrezi, Pilao Rice and a Naan Bread. Who said ?greedy b--ger? ?

The chef received my order and in a freshly washed fry pan without any oil he added three good spoonful?s of base sauce which very much looked like KD style. It had the colour and consistency of many base sauces we see all the time on this site so nothing special there.
In went a spoonful of what I can only describe as Ghee but it was partly melted so hard to define along with a spoon-tip full of coriander powder, one of cumin and a good handful of chopped coriander.

He thern put in pre-cooked chicken tikka pieces, some pre-cooked peppers and whacked it on the flames. My pan went on the left hand cooker and as he did that he took the pan from the far right which was finished and moved all the pans (5 of them) a place to the right. He stirred them all from left to right rather like a plate spinner trying to keep them from falling, and went back to mine. He tipped the pan and a four foot flame leaped up into the roof, maybe that Ghee was nitro-glycerin!!. By this time he had another fresh order on his left and my pan had moved another place on to the right. This happened a couple more times by which time my curry had moved over to the right and then into it's container.

I must say it was a sight to marvel at and a lesson to me how to cope with such huge demand. This place must make a mint!

But for me there was nothing exceptional about this food. It was o.k. but not brilliant. I have made many better myself and it certainly didn't have anything like that smokey taste in it. But I am not surprised really as all the ingredients he used were for a start minimal and not a hint of spiced oil? ( apart from some ghee ) was used.
The rice was fine and the Naan bread was a bit dry and not very fluffy at all.

It does go to show that we are all subject to judging by what we have local to us and one persons "curry to die for" is anothers very average effort.
I got a reccomendation to this place so obviously my colleague thinks this place is great but I would only say it was worth a visit if you wanted a decent cheap meal not a memorable one.
The key word is "average" and I think a lot of restaurants will only produce average food as this will always appeal to the widest range of customers and therefore make more money.

I agree we can all make better curries than some of our locals. After all we are more dedicated here to finding that perfect dish than making our living cooking hundreds of "fast-food" curries without any care to it's quality.
But there are some really excellent take-aways around and a good few near me, thank goodness for that.

There are some I just can?t beat and because of this will continue the quest for the answer. In the meantime as you will agree we have this site to look to for a lot of the answers and a goldmine of knowledge of our favourite food.

Regards

Ray G

[George]

So I leave you with a thought, "keep cooking and stop searching".   

I regret to say I agree. The half dozen take-aways I've had in the past couple of months were all very poor. Why on earth would anyone want to copy them? I now prefer most supermarket curries. End of an era!

Regards
George

[Graeme]

My local has gone down the plug hole now after 25-26 years.

now serving a red tom soup curry for a vindaloo, no longer the dark brown
sludge i loved so much full of spices and coriander etc not just heat but depth too.
I have enjoyed this same take away and the same dish for the last 25 odd years.

whats going on ?

graeme.

[George]

One thing we might usefully do is canvass BIRs to register our disappointment at the significant decline in standards. Ask them to return to previous ways of doing things, whatever that is.

Regards
George

[raygraham]

Hi George,

I would like to know when these changes came about and the reason why. I can't say I can define when the transition occured but it is very rare nowadays to find the old style of curry as described by Graeme.

There was a restaurant about ten miles miles from me in Nelson, Lancashire ( Mahdubon ) which served up this "old style" curry and it was superb. The trouble is it is a bit of a hike to get too so I haven't been for a long time. I wonder if it still turns out the same quality as it used to?

Ray

[George]

I would like to know when these changes came about and the reason why. I can't say I can define when the transition occured but it is very rare nowadays to find the old style of curry as described by Graeme.

Ray

Good question! To be honest, I'm not anywhere near 100% sure there has been any change but I feel there has, and it seems others agree. If a change has occurred, I'd say the decline was gradual over several years. I never noticed any decline in standards up to 1999, I'd say. I recall take-aways and sit-down BIR meals being good, up to that around that time. But some of the same restaurants are not now so good; I'm sure of it!

Or is it just that my expectations have changed by eating more 'authentic' Indian food and some of the finer examples of chilled (and even frozen) Indian dishes from supermarkets? For the most part, most BIR food in 2006 simply can't compare with those two categories, I fear. And it's more expensive, so I'm losing interest.

My own best example of an Indian restaurant which has maintained standards is "The Kashmir" in Southsea, as reviewed briefly by me on this site.

What do you others reckon? Has there really been a drop in standards?

Regards
George

[Yellow Fingers]

Because I've been fairly content with my own curry making efforts I haven't been for a sit in or takeaway curry for over a year now. Well, I was passing through Northampton the other day and decided to drop in and visit a friend of mine. We met up at the Tamarind on the Wellingborough road. We ordered achari chicken and chicken dhansak and I was full of anticipation after such a time away from the 'real' thing.

Now, when I tasted the dhansak I got a very big surprise, it was almost exactly the same as the Kris Dhillon dhansak, right down to the lack of a strong lentil flavour. Also both curries were very thick and orange rather than brown. I could actually spoon up a bit of the curry and turn the spoon upside down and it stayed on the spoon. They did have a slight hint of the old taste I was accustomed to but to much less degree. There was no excess oil to be seen and I wonder if this was part of the reason?

It had been really bothering me that people on this forum were claiming to be getting restaurant style curries and yet when I tried the posted recipes they were just not up to scratch. I now understand why so many here claim to be able to reproduce the restaurant style curry exactly if this is now the standard that is served up, because I can too, infact I can do better. This does raise a point though. If this is what some people who contribute to this forum are getting served and know no better, then they are never going to be able to add to the general debate here about getting that 'old fashioned' smell and taste that a lot of us are/were used to in the past, because they won't have experienced it.

I can also see why some people claim that all restaurant curries are very alike. The chicken achari and dhansak were virtually the same orange colour and both were very thick. Curries I've had in the past have varied in colour and consistency and had a greater variety and depth of taste as well. It's a very sad day if this is the way that the curry houses are going.

I took a couple of rather blurry pictures of the curries if anyone is interested.

[DARTHPHALL]

yes, post the picies please