If you are willing to pay the delivery fees. 
Sure! Just ask for ‘Ava’ and then be like ‘I’m so-and-so from the boards!’
Ah, so when my customers say “What curry dishes do you have?” They probably want the Murgh Tikka Masala?
We don’t serve naan with any of the dishes, it is always a side and nor do we use salt and pepper. I don’t think we use any traditional European spices in our dishes, but I’d have to check to be sure.
OK, now that we know what “a curry” is, would someone please explain “Balti”?
Consider yourself backed up!
It is hard to explain to non-brits just how integral “curry” is to British life. Perhaps the best way of explaining this is to point out that in Benidorm (cheap package holiday destinantion for Brits - millions visit every year) there wil be as many curry-houses as spanish restaurants. We can’t bear to be parted from it - especially when alcohol is involved.
In most British cities (apart from Wolverhampton - naturally) you will find most of the world cuisines but even in the smallest town you will always find an Indian restaurant.
It is very lazy just to post a link, but this is too obvious A Balti is a type of curry served in a metal bowl with naan bread to mop it up with. That is, not on a plate over rice which is the usual curry arrangement.
The link pretty much covers it - a balti is most certainly a curry, but not all curries are baltis.
A balti (to me at least) has a more savoury flavour than the standard madras type ruby, and is eaten with bread, which gets you quite messy (if you’re doing it right).
Another difference is that if you go for a balti in a curry house that specialises in them then they often don’t bring you individual naans but instead one huge one the size of a tablecloth - so it’s a bit more sociable than usual.
They are lovely too.
AFAIK, Balti is native to Pakistan, and is rather soup-like.
Actually it’s native to Birminghamastan, specifically the Balsal Heath prefecture!
It’s not especially soup-like - its a stew like a curry, and the sauce is of a consisitency to attach itself to the bread - ie reasonably thick.
Don’t you get them in Ireland?
We do, but the curry culture isn’t nearly as ingrained here as it is in the UK.
It’s only now we’re getting immigrants and so in the next forty or fifty years, maybe going for a Lithuanian-esque meal or a Nigerian-esque one might be the thing to do after you’ve had a skinful.
Who knows?
i’d have to be mortally drunk before I went for cows foot or pickled fish with cold cabbage.
Small Clanger writes:
> Chinese/Thai/Mexican whatever, is nice once in a while but curry* is a vital
> ingredient of British life.
I’ve never found any place in the U.K. that served even moderately good Mexican food. It seems to me that the Chinese and Thai places in the U.K. are, on average, not as good as in the U.S. Indian places are of course much more common and better than in the U.S.
To get all this back on the usual Cafe Society track: who would make better curry: the Justice League of America or the X-Men?
Sorry, couldn’t resist. 
My wife was intrigued when I mentioned that somebody here said pickled carp is even better than pickled herring. And cabbage, hot, cold, or buried three months in a clay jar, is the food of the gods.
The Indian food I’ve had ranged from quite good (homemade by nice Hindu grannies) to gaacky and the desserts all taste like Jujube yogurt, though I’ve been told that’s because the candy best known for pulling fillings tastes like the jujube fruit.
The thought of canned curry turns my stomach but what can I say about the cuisine of a nation that puts canned beans on toast?
In general we don’t eat mexican food. There aren’t any mexicans in Britain (Lee trevino visits from time to time, so does Santana but that’s about it)
I shouldn’t have said Mexican. I have never even seen anywhere that might be decent. The only Mexican places I’ve been to (not my choice) have been rubbish. Impersonal chain franchises serving bland pre-cooked crap. Please replace Mexican with Italian The Italian places I used to go to were nice little family (not that family) places.
I don’t know how to break this to you gently, but I put curried beans on toast (with staggering gastric consequences, thank God I don’t smoke!)
Or get an electric coffee grinder for the dry spices and only use the mortar and petle to mix them with the ‘wet’ herbs and spices.
There was one decent Mexican restaurant I knew in London, by decent I mean as good as an average place in Silicon Valley, but most Mexican restaurants I knew in UK were terrible, the only thing it was ever worth eating was Fajitas as at least then you could make them up yourself.
Canned curries can be quite good in emergencies, Marks and Sparks used to do a nice beef curry canned that was useful emergency rations.
True, but you don’t really use a lot of dry spices with Thai curries. The bitch is not grinding the coriander and cumin (which I don’t use.) The bitch is that damn lemongrass, galangal, and chiles.
Yeah, the lemongrass is practially a softwood in terms of fibrousness. Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pant, pant, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pant, pant, etc.
I did actually get a can of curry paste that my cookbook recommended, but I haven’t tried it yet.
With lemongrass, I just use far more, break it up roughly and ‘infuse’, as with bay leaves. I’d rather spend the extra few pence than spend all that time pounding away.
I’ve put lemongrass and chillies in the coffee grinder without problems. It’s only garlic and ginger /galangal which is too ‘wet’ both of which can be done speedily with a fine grater (microplane I would suggest is best). Or you can use one of those hand heald electric beater sets with the little liquidizer bowls (the best thing in existance for finely chopped onion without tears).
When it comes to Indain curries there are many more hard spices that make the coffee grinder well worthwhile.