As members of this forum have the knowledge to make BIR style curries, have you considered opening your own curry restaurant or takeaway.

Me and my family recently ordered an Indian takeaway.  When I got home and opened the bag from the takeway, we found there was one rice missing from the order.  We phoned the takeaway to let them know the item was missing but due to the distance between our house and the takeaway we felt it was too much hassle to go back to collect the item.  Have you ordered from takeaways to find items missing from your order.   I am curious to know if this is a common experience. 

I cooked basmati rice yesterday.   Basmati rice is high in starch and the starch needs   to be washed out or the rice becomes sticky.  I soaked the rice for several hours, changed the water and rinsed the rice under a tap.   Despite this my rice was still sticky.  How long should basmati rice be soaked to remove the starch and besides soaking and rinsing the rice are there other methods to remove starch?

I was watching a video on youtube showing a recipe for a base sauce.  The man narrating the video mentioned that some restaurants use cinnamon in their bases (cinnamon was not used in the recipe shown).  I thought that cinnamon was an unusual recipe to use in a curry and I thought cinnamon was only suitable to for cakes and desserts.  Has anyone come accross curry base recipes which use unusual ingredients you would not expect in a curry base. 

I was watching a documentary a few years ago called Made in Manchester about various aspects of life in Manchester.  The documentary featured a restaurant in the curry mile and they were competing in a best curry chef competition.  The winner of the competition was a British chef from another restaurant much to the annoyance of the staff from the restaurant in the curry mile who felt a British chef had to be cooking Indian food in restaurants and to take part in the competition.  Have you come across instances of Indian restaurants using British chefs. 

I will be visiting Cambridge next month.  Can anyone recommend any good Indian restaurants in this city. 

Some base sauces only use onions, garlic and ginger as vegetables while other base sauce recipes use vegetables such as cauliflower, peppers and carrots.  Does using additional vegetables make a big difference to the taste of a base sauce?   

I like to try Indian restaurants abroad but I worry if restaurants abroad will be as good as the restaurants in the UK.  So far I have eaten in Indian restaurants in Belgium, Germany, Austria and the US.  The restaurants I tried in Belgium, Holland and Germany were quite good but I was disappointed with the restaurants I tried in the US.  What have been your experiences with Indian restaurants abroad? 

People would normally assume that Indian restaurants in an area with a high concentration of Indian restaurants are more likely to offer good food due to fierce competition and customers having plenty of other restaurants to choose from if a restaurant offers poor food or service. 

However this does not always seem to be the case.  I found a website which gives information about Indian restaurants in the curry mile in Manchester and the website includes reviews for some restaurants.  Some restaurants received bad reviews.  Have you eaten in a restaurant located somewhere with a large number of Indian restaurants competing against each other and you encountered poor food and bad service. 

In my town an Indian restaurant opened earlier this year only for it to close.  I am curious how the recession has affected the Indian restaurant rate in other parts of the country.  Have any Indian restaurants in your area closed. 

I have recently joined this forum and I would like to say hell to members of this forum.  I am from the North Wales area.  I love curry and I am glad to have found a forum for people who share my passion for curry.