Saturday 4 April 2009

Curries from Kolkutta...or was that Cambridge?


Last night was Rockdale dinner night. A group of us who worked at the now defunct Rockdale office of the Government agency that employed us gather for dinner about every six months. One of our number, Jn, fancies himself as a gourmand and usually selects the venue. For the most part his selections are successful although I didn't fancy a Japanese restaurant somewhere out in the southern suburbs that we went to once. That would have been me rather than the restaurant though because I am not good with seafood and most of the menu naturally was seafood; and exotic seafood at that.

Last night's venue was an Indian restaurant in Bondi Junction. We had tried it once previously and it was OK. Nothing exceptional but it seemed acceptable for food and service.

Afterwards I thought I would check the restaurant on the Internet and looked up one of those sites where anonymous contributors record their comments. You never know whether favourable comments are planted there by the owners and critical comments by their competitors but often what is recorded can prove revealing.

This restaurant had attracted polarised comments, either highly critical or fairly favourable. What intrigued me though was that about half the comments were by people claiming that they had come to Australia from the United Kingdom and were rating this venue against their favourite UK Indian restaurants. Why would that be relevant? I would think the best comparison would be against Indian restaurants in India.

6 comments:

  1. The way the Brits carry on about curry, you'd think they invented. One Pom that I work with thinks curry here is awful, kebabs too. I pressed him to find out why, and essentiall there isn't enough fat, oil and grease in food here. Scary!

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  2. I was horribly disappointed to learn that chicken tikka masala IS a British invention. Maybe the comparison with Indian food in the UK is justified?!

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  3. Ad Rad - well, I never knew that.

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  4. The Anglicised curries that the English eat do not compare well to the Australianised curries we get in our local Indian restaurants. The English probably remember the side serve of chips they order better than the actual curry. Everything in England comes with chips.

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  5. @Andrew and in America your sandwich comes with a bowl of crisps!

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  6. Well, last time in England, had a pizza with silver beet on it. Same trip, Paris, had an amazingly simple pizza with artichoke - beautiful. In England, quickly worked out the ONLY edible food is Indian, and its not too bad..most English food is sheer fat and cholesterol, horrible. Cant get a decent coffee in the entire country - we tried.
    Michael.

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