INDIAN RESTAURANTS

[100milesaway]

Many years ago there was a true INDIAN restaurant  in the centre of Leeds called the Mandalay. It was iconic, you got your table for the whole evening, it shut at about 9 ish.There was a mini grand piano which played  classical music by a very accomplished pianist.  The food was superb, It  was patronized  with Indian family's allways dressed in the most beautiful  saris and well behaved children.

It closed years ago  and I have never seen the like since.

Getting onto my observation and interested to see what others think of our present offerings.

If a Chinese restaurant is Chinese

An Italian restaurant  is Italian.

Why is a Bangladesh  or Pakistani restaurant  Indian????

From Auntie 

[bruno22rf]

Our best local restaurant has "Indian" and "Bangladesh" food written over the door.Besides, before 1947 were they not all the same country?

[TIGHTCHOKE]

From the British Pakistani Foundation;

"Curry has well and truly been adopted by Britain as a national dish. It is thought that 23 million people in the UK enjoy curry on a regular basis and with numbers like those; it’s easy to see just how much of a home Britain is for many types of curry.
Curry in the UK dates back all the way to the 18th century, and possibly even further into our ancestor’s history. Some of the first recipes to be tried and tested in the UK were very mild compared to today’s preferred level of heat, using more herbs than spices. By the 19th century turmeric, cumin, ginger, fenugreek and cayenne were embraced into the mix and we moved further towards more traditional curries from the sub-continent.

The first curry house in the UK was opened around 200 years ago by Sake Dean Mahomed. A Muslim soldier, Mahomed founded the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London, and exposed many to their first experience of spicy sub-continental cooking.

Since Britain’s first taste of curry all these years ago, the number of ‘Indian’ restaurants has only grown. The first surge of this exotic cuisine came in the late 1930s, where many Indians arrived here to help rebuild London after the Blitz. Enterprising Bangladeshis soon noticed the British interest in their street food and invested in opening restaurants for UK natives.

It is thought that around 80 percent of ‘Indian’ restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis because what some British people think of as ‘Indian’ food is actually the cuisine that derives from the whole of the subcontinent.

Between the 1940s and the 1980s, the number of Indian restaurants in grew 500x, solidifying the cuisine in British culture.

This large and fast growth is thought to be influenced by the 1947 partition of India, where many Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs migrated to the UK following the turbulent creation of Pakistan.

We Brits didn’t just accept the wonderful cuisine of the sub-continent; however, over the years we’ve also merged and adapted the cuisine to create dishes that are quintessentially British.

Chicken Tikka Masala is the most popular example of this, by far. It’s believed that the dish was created by a Pakistani chef who invented the Chicken Tikka Masala by improvising a sauce made from yoghurt, cream and spices. Others believe that it was created for a couple in Birmingham who found the other curries available too spicy. The true origin is unknown, but that does not dispute that this dish is a true British national dish.

Currently, the UK has over 9,000 Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants. From your local Indian takeaway to your cities most popular curry house, to the upmarket, Michelin star establishments in London, like Benares, it’s truly part of our culture.

Britain has absorbed the cuisine of curry, allowed it to influence other creations and we have watched and loved every step of its homemaking in Britain."

[enfieldspares]

1 hour ago, bruno22rf said:

Our best local restaurant has "Indian" and "Bangladesh" food written over the door.Besides, before 1947 were they not all the same country?

This. +1.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, Not been in a Restaurant for Yonks, well not in this country, Not a fan of Curry but i do like Thai food 

[bruno22rf]

13 minutes ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, Not been in a Restaurant for Yonks, well not in this country, Not a fan of Curry but i do like Thai food 

Which curry are you not a fan of OPP? There's literally thousands of different dishes and often you need to visit a decent restaurant and tell the staff what flavours you prefer, they can then suggest a dish you might like. We have a friend who shared you dislike, took him to our favourite Indian and he discussed his tastes with the manager, a meal was put before him and now he orders the same dish every time we go as he's addicted to it.

[Scully]

Just luurrve a good curry! 
we brought our kids up to try anything food related and thankfully they will eat just about anything; avid foodies. So wherever we’ve gone in this country and abroad, they always eat what the locals do. 
On a trip to London we were staying near the airport and our nearest tube was Hounslow West. We got back late one evening and walked from the tube to our hotel, but on the way saw some Indian chefs cooking in the window of a restaurant. Looked great so in we went. We were the only three white faces in there and the food was fabulous! 
Have been back! 👍

[100milesaway]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

Just luurrve a good curry! 
we brought our kids up to try anything food related and thankfully they will eat just about anything; avid foodies. So wherever we’ve gone in this country and abroad, they always eat what the locals do. 
On a trip to London we were staying near the airport and our nearest tube was Hounslow West. We got back late one evening and walked from the tube to our hotel, but on the way saw some Indian chefs cooking in the window of a restaurant. Looked great so in we went. We were the only three white faces in there and the food was fabulous! 
Have been back! 👍

Interesting Scully, sounds like my experience at the Mandalay over 50 years ago, the chef there also cooked everything in the centre of the restaurant  in a glass dome for all to see. He was resplendent in his turban and immaculate whites. Good to know they are still around.

From Auntie 

[udderlyoffroad]

Plenty of good curry places still about - even in smaller conurbations.  The fun is in finding them, but maybe don't plan in any fencing jobs for the day after a trying a new one 😂

As for the 'dining experience' - granted that is vary variable, but I suggest not going on Thursday/Friday night for an immediate improvement in ambience.

 

[100milesaway]

3 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

From the British Pakistani Foundation;

"Curry has well and truly been adopted by Britain as a national dish. It is thought that 23 million people in the UK enjoy curry on a regular basis and with numbers like those; it’s easy to see just how much of a home Britain is for many types of curry.
Curry in the UK dates back all the way to the 18th century, and possibly even further into our ancestor’s history. Some of the first recipes to be tried and tested in the UK were very mild compared to today’s preferred level of heat, using more herbs than spices. By the 19th century turmeric, cumin, ginger, fenugreek and cayenne were embraced into the mix and we moved further towards more traditional curries from the sub-continent.

The first curry house in the UK was opened around 200 years ago by Sake Dean Mahomed. A Muslim soldier, Mahomed founded the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London, and exposed many to their first experience of spicy sub-continental cooking.

Since Britain’s first taste of curry all these years ago, the number of ‘Indian’ restaurants has only grown. The first surge of this exotic cuisine came in the late 1930s, where many Indians arrived here to help rebuild London after the Blitz. Enterprising Bangladeshis soon noticed the British interest in their street food and invested in opening restaurants for UK natives.

It is thought that around 80 percent of ‘Indian’ restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis because what some British people think of as ‘Indian’ food is actually the cuisine that derives from the whole of the subcontinent.

Between the 1940s and the 1980s, the number of Indian restaurants in grew 500x, solidifying the cuisine in British culture.

This large and fast growth is thought to be influenced by the 1947 partition of India, where many Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs migrated to the UK following the turbulent creation of Pakistan.

We Brits didn’t just accept the wonderful cuisine of the sub-continent; however, over the years we’ve also merged and adapted the cuisine to create dishes that are quintessentially British.

Chicken Tikka Masala is the most popular example of this, by far. It’s believed that the dish was created by a Pakistani chef who invented the Chicken Tikka Masala by improvising a sauce made from yoghurt, cream and spices. Others believe that it was created for a couple in Birmingham who found the other curries available too spicy. The true origin is unknown, but that does not dispute that this dish is a true British national dish.

Currently, the UK has over 9,000 Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants. From your local Indian takeaway to your cities most popular curry house, to the upmarket, Michelin star establishments in London, like Benares, it’s truly part of our culture.

Britain has absorbed the cuisine of curry, allowed it to influence other creations and we have watched and loved every step of its homemaking in Britain."

Thanks for that I realised the culture must have been from way back and in lots of the original eateries many used to be vegetarian and the real Indian ones would never have sold beef as the cattle were sacred to them.

From Auntie 

1 minute ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Plenty of good curry places still about - even in smaller conurbations.  The fun is in finding them, but maybe don't plan in any fencing jobs for the day after a trying a new one 😂

As for the 'dining experience' - granted that is vary variable, but I suggest not going on Thursday/Friday night for an immediate improvement in ambience.

 

I think that was the reason the Mandalay shut the doors at 9-00.

From Auntie. 

[Yellow Bear]

Best I found was a little greasy spoon cafe type establishment just round the corner from the Bradford Alhambra.  Used to lunch there when working on the Theatre referb.     Simple food but  oh so good.

[Velocette]

The "Kashmir" or the "Karachi" ?. Downstairs was cheaper still !

[Nublue 22]

Time's are changing and the older ones don't like it, the younger ones don't know any different, I remember in the 70s you'd get dressed up to go out, ( watch an old snooker match) as for curry it would be my last meal if I get a choice. 

[Yellow Bear]

28 minutes ago, Velocette said:

The "Kashmir" or the "Karachi" ?. Downstairs was cheaper still !

It was downstairs but for the life of me I cannot remember the name.

[amateur]

1 hour ago, Yellow Bear said:

Best I found was a little greasy spoon cafe type establishment just round the corner from the Bradford Alhambra.  Used to lunch there when working on the Theatre referb.     Simple food but  oh so good.

I still recall the little curry place in one of the back-to-backs not far from Bradford Uni where, in the mid 70s you were served a dish of chicken or mutton curry and two chapattis for 50p. No cutlery, but a sink in the corner where you could wash your hands. You could pay more for a prawn curry!

There were other, more upmarket, places in Bradford, but for cheap, filling scoff, that was the one.

When our younger daughter went to Bradford Uni in the 2000s, I went looking for it again, but those houses had been long demolished and Omar's was by then the students' favourite.

[Yellow Bear]

53 minutes ago, amateur said:

I still recall the little curry place in one of the back-to-backs not far from Bradford Uni where, in the mid 70s you were served a dish of chicken or mutton curry and two chapattis for 50p. No cutlery, but a sink in the corner where you could wash your hands. You could pay more for a prawn curry!

There were other, more upmarket, places in Bradford, but for cheap, filling scoff, that was the one.

When our younger daughter went to Bradford Uni in the 2000s, I went looking for it again, but those houses had been long demolished and Omar's was by then the students' favourite.

I was there in late 80's

[Bobba]

In Bristol in the early 60’s many of the curry houses served chicken curry where the chicken still had bones in it - the whole carcass was just chopped into pieces - and you had to pay extra to have it “off the bone”. Today it seems all chicken curries are breast meat. A pity, because I prefer legs and thigh meat.

[Bigbob]

I rate a wee cafe here for a english fry up then The Eastern Buffet  for all the different dishes where you can try a little of each to see what you like 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

3 minutes ago, Bobba said:

In Bristol in the early 60’s many of the curry houses served chicken curry where the chicken still had bones in it - the whole carcass was just chopped into pieces - and you had to pay extra to have it “off the bone”. Today it seems all chicken curries are breast meat. A pity, because I prefer legs and thigh meat.

Funny you should mention that, whilst in Belize, sometime in the last century, we had Gurkhas as our Infantry Battalion.

We got permission to eat with them and you had to eat with your hands as they do.

I think the chickens were gutted and chopped in to four large pieces, cooked and served up.

We had some wonderful meals with the Gurkhas.

[Bigbob]

7 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

From the British Pakistani Foundation;

"Curry has well and truly been adopted by Britain as a national dish. It is thought that 23 million people in the UK enjoy curry on a regular basis and with numbers like those; it’s easy to see just how much of a home Britain is for many types of curry.
Curry in the UK dates back all the way to the 18th century, and possibly even further into our ancestor’s history. Some of the first recipes to be tried and tested in the UK were very mild compared to today’s preferred level of heat, using more herbs than spices. By the 19th century turmeric, cumin, ginger, fenugreek and cayenne were embraced into the mix and we moved further towards more traditional curries from the sub-continent.

The first curry house in the UK was opened around 200 years ago by Sake Dean Mahomed. A Muslim soldier, Mahomed founded the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London, and exposed many to their first experience of spicy sub-continental cooking.

Since Britain’s first taste of curry all these years ago, the number of ‘Indian’ restaurants has only grown. The first surge of this exotic cuisine came in the late 1930s, where many Indians arrived here to help rebuild London after the Blitz. Enterprising Bangladeshis soon noticed the British interest in their street food and invested in opening restaurants for UK natives.

It is thought that around 80 percent of ‘Indian’ restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis because what some British people think of as ‘Indian’ food is actually the cuisine that derives from the whole of the subcontinent.

Between the 1940s and the 1980s, the number of Indian restaurants in grew 500x, solidifying the cuisine in British culture.

This large and fast growth is thought to be influenced by the 1947 partition of India, where many Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs migrated to the UK following the turbulent creation of Pakistan.

We Brits didn’t just accept the wonderful cuisine of the sub-continent; however, over the years we’ve also merged and adapted the cuisine to create dishes that are quintessentially British.

Chicken Tikka Masala is the most popular example of this, by far. It’s believed that the dish was created by a Pakistani chef who invented the Chicken Tikka Masala by improvising a sauce made from yoghurt, cream and spices. Others believe that it was created for a couple in Birmingham who found the other curries available too spicy. The true origin is unknown, but that does not dispute that this dish is a true British national dish.

Currently, the UK has over 9,000 Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants. From your local Indian takeaway to your cities most popular curry house, to the upmarket, Michelin star establishments in London, like Benares, it’s truly part of our culture.

Britain has absorbed the cuisine of curry, allowed it to influence other creations and we have watched and loved every step of its homemaking in Britain."

Google and copy and paste is your friend LOL LOL 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

1 minute ago, Bigbob said:

Google and copy and paste is your friend LOL LOL 

Yes, that is why I credited it to the British Pakistani Foundation............................

Edited November 27 by TIGHTCHOKE
Capitalisation.

[amateur]

In the early 80s, I recall an excellent Chinese restaurant in the Birmingham Bull Ring. The company I worked for's head office was in West Brom, but my contact at HO always took me there.

I revisited it, on my own, many years later, in the late evening after a very tiring day and just couldn't be bothered with the menu, so I asked the waiter to bring me something tasty and filling.

 A plate of liver chow mein turned up. This was, apparently what the staff were having. Deelicious and very cheap!

[Scully]

A few weeks ago we dined out in Inn on the Square ( or Brossen Steakhouse ) in Keswick. All the chefs are Asian or of similar ethnicity. Best Thai Prawn curry I’ve ever tasted. 

[Velocette]

5 hours ago, amateur said:

I still recall the little curry place in one of the back-to-backs not far from Bradford Uni where, in the mid 70s you were served a dish of chicken or mutton curry and two chapattis for 50p. No cutlery, but a sink in the corner where you could wash your hands. You could pay more for a prawn curry!

There were other, more upmarket, places in Bradford, but for cheap, filling scoff, that was the one.

When our younger daughter went to Bradford Uni in the 2000s, I went looking for it again, but those houses had been long demolished and Omar's was by then the students' favourite.

Probably the Kashmir, just over Great Horton Road in a row of terraces, two doors away from the morgue and opposite the family planning clinic ! Downstairs was the 50p curry, upstairs was slightly posher. The Karachi was about 400yds away, just over Little Horton Lane and a bit more spacious. I was at the Uni in the mid 70's but the whole place is unrecognisable now. City of Culture my ****

[BobbyH]

Is the Chinese food you get here in my parents local called ‘Chubby Panda’ the same as you would get in China?

The same for Indian and Italian restraints….Are they the same quality of of food served in there host nations?