lol  ;D

You also got Les Halles (btw where is that in NY?), not Indian but a bistro, run by Anthony Bourdain  today Ive just finished Kitchen Confidential and a Cooks Tour, both books written by the chef in question - both brilliant, entertaining and hysterically funny. If you?ve ever wanted to open a restaurant, then think again. It gives you the whole ins and outs of the restaurant trade and believe (him) its a hard life.

Chefs will not admit this become health reasons, also a chef will tell you how to make a curry but not what the so called "secret ingredient" is, probably because they don?t know themselves. It does seem to be the by-product of reused oil. The only mystery is, how do you reuse oil from a vindaloo and a phal, the heat level would ruin the oil for the next mild curry. Or would it? Has anyone tried this yet?

Balti is like any BIR in that, there are good and bad ones, sorry to hear you?ve only had bad, if you?ve had a balti at a BIR, then it isn?t the real deal, although even the real deal is hard to find even in Birmingham these days. I?m hoping the authentic balti cook book is a little more than KD?s "add extra onion slices and pepper balti". Although that recipe was quite good, but it wasn?t a trad balti.

Hope you find a good balti restaurant as there are several that produce really good food.

Not just the nans, although yes, ive had HUGE nans in balti restaurants,1 nan would be enough for 3 hungry people.
Here is a fun guide to the differences.

http://www.jdbg20436.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/balti/balti.html

Quote from: vin daloo on November 04, 2005, 07:57 PM
i have never been to birmingham.  So whats the difference between A regular BIR and a birmingham balti house? 

The difference is or atleast was quite a lot, the balti houses usually were very basic cafe type restaurants where you were served curries in a balti dish, made of cast iron and very large (BIR used plates in those days). The curries had a different base sauce than a BIR, and relied usually on lotsa fresh coriander and garam masala,the menu would include a  combination of different meats and pulses, for example; lamb,chicken and chickpeas in the same bowl. The sauce was thick and the idea was you eat it without cutlery,scoop up with a nan bread (no rice included). The curries weren?t very hot but they were spicey. The original balti houses were not licenced so you could bring your own alcohol and they would provide glasses. I think they were originally designed as a cheap cafe for the asian community. Of course non asians got to know about them and they became popular, popularity spawned into a kind of gimmick and soon any curry that was served in a balti dish and had a bit of onion and pepper was called a balti.

100 BEST BALTI CURRIES, Diane Lowe and Mike Davidson: Pavilion Books, 1994.
ISBN: 1-85793-221-8

Is a good book for traditional baltis

I will order me a copy, Birmingham Balti is a fun food,
maybe not the same as BIR, but im sure there is
something the book can give.
I?m sure there will plenty of discussion once we get to
try the recipes, and as its something other than a famous
indian woman, who knows only trad, trying to pass off something
that?s authentic restaurant, it must be worth a try.

One of the reasons i believe in the KD base sauce is because it freezes very well.
Bases that have alot of spices in tend to deteriorate when frozen, maybe because
KDs base sauce is paprika and turmeric based, which are both fruit/vegatable and
root. Where as other bases containing seeds and alot of seed oils get blander and
the balance of spices are removed. So some spices cope with freezing better
than others.

If a curry house was to use frozen base then they would have to be careful what
spices they contained otherwise it wouldn?t taste the same as the fresh base

Those people who are interested   
the book in now available!(4 weeks)
http://www.kushibalti.co.uk/launch.htm

Still waiting! Here is the lastest info,

COMING SOON!  Sometime in the week commencing 31st October, we hope to have news about a launch date.   Unfortunately, there've been a few delays from our original estimated launch, but we're now on course to publish very soon, in time for Christmas.  Those are our latest estimates.  Thanks to everyone who's asked about the book- and we'd also like to thank our publishers for all their help in making it possible.

http://www.kushibalti.co.uk/booknew.htm