Is a curry a curry?

Ayub

Wondered what people expect when they go down the local Asian takeaway and when they eat "out" do you expect better.

Do you look at a shops layout to define the overall experience or do you simply want to eat in a nice " upcoming place "

Exemplar

There is a curry house in Newark called Castle Cuisine (as its next to the castle...). Looks awful from the front. Inside none of the chairs, tables or cutlery match. They have no license (there is a Victoria Wine next door though). Their saving grace? The staff are amazing and the food is brilliant. That's why they are booked solid every night and have been for about 5 years now.

Ayub

I ask this because in bradford everybody raves about 3 pads, all three in my opinion when serving the same taste very bland and poor in my opinion.

I went to pad A, food arrived 30 min later, was warm not hot and the Chapati was like wafer thing in fact I could of used it to scrape ice off a windshield.

Pad 2 food arrived 30 mins later very hot, not hot in dish but very hot plate! dish tasted ok, nothing special. Naan was the ok gimmick but felt that it was wafer thing in too many places.

Pad 3 food arrived in 20 mins, curry was both hot and well made. Food wax ok staff were ok again nothing better than the local....

So what makes them better than the rest? Possibly the over priced food? Like your thoughts please.

mjn

I used to work round the corner from one of the best kebab shops ever!  Used to go in there most days, for a kofte kebab on naan, fantastic!

And i lived round the corner from another kebab shop, which had awesome chicken.

I miss Manchester some times.

SBT

You shouldn't judge a place by front of house.It's the kitchen you should be looking at,some of these places are filthy.

It's usualy the nice looking places that are worse

[email protected]

I love curry but for me it's about the taste not the decor of the place

I like to be able to sit down with a few beers, have a nice starter, main, side dishes, breads etc when I am eating out and tend to eat a lot more than if I were having a takeaway

Having said that, where I live now, try as I have, I have failed to find even an average restaurant or take away.

I grew up and spent most of my working life in Yorkshire (South and West) and Scotland (Edinburgh) so like the style of curry you get "up north" in places like West Yorkshire, Manchester, Glasgow etc.

I hate what I refer to as "Southern Currys" where the sauce hasn't been given a change to soak into the meat so what you have is just plain chicken with sauce on top. To me that isn't a curry. I am guessing however if I had grown up only knowing that then a trip up north with thick sauces and heavily marinaded meat would not appeal

So when I get the chance to go out for a meal when back up north I will aim for a curry house (hence my other post yesterday) and when I find a good curry house, I will return time after time.

So if I am staying over in Manchester I will head towards the curry mile. Leeds will see me at the Naawab and so on.

The exception to all of this is when I am in Swindon (which I am quite a bit) where I have found a really nice Indian. I would never have a traditional curry there because it's still a "southern curry" but the other dishes they do are really nice.

georgeman

I'm from bradford and I try my hardest to keep away from the main '3' big places I think akbar has the worst service imaginable minutes between starts and main waiters waiting for you to put your forks down then rushing your plates away and bringing the bill

I prefer the smaller places that don't look very nice on the outside but still do amazing food... Like the veggie place that was on Gordon Ramsey program very nice food

3 singhs looks more of a chain but I think the food is of a great quality there

Omars in the center take away the gimmick of the giant nann and the curry is if a great standard

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DPinBucks

That's an interesting illustration of the degree of integration of some parts of our culture.

Instead of discussing the subtleties and merits of the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Hindustani, Bangalorean, Madrasan, Sri Lankan, etc regional dishes of the Sub-Continent, we talk about 'northern' and 'southern' curries ('curry' just means sauce).  Not Sub-Continental curries, either.  British curries.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking it. It's just interesting, that's all.

reiteration

when looking at eating in any takeaway etc - I tend to check this site - Food Standards Agency - Search for food hygiene ratings

I was surprised when my local chinese had only 2 stars tho...but they've just had it all refurb'd out now...

logiciel

Answer: No, it's a sickly looking and worse smelling stew.