Punjabi Dahaba Grill

A new restaurant has opened in Kings Heath called the ‘Punjabi Dahaba Grill’ and as I quite like Kings Heath and of course with my personal penchant for ‘Indian’ food, I decided to take away one of their menu leaflets for future reference. There’s vegan soya alternatives … quite apt given the building used to house the Manic Organic Café and some excellent chef’s recommendations such as Halam (lamb cooked with mixed lentils and green chillies) and ‘Hariyali Masala Salmon’ (fillets of salmon flash fried in a green masala sauce, made with fresh coconut, coriander, garlic, mint and chopped tomatoes).

However, undoubtedly their major revelation is their description of Birmingham’s favourite dish ….

‘Classic Original Balti … Unchanged for hundreds of years. Tender chicken, lamb or prawn cooked with ginger, onions, tomatoes and capsicum. A spicy dish served in a balti dish.’

I think I’ll stick with the theory that it’s a Brummie dish invented in our fair city about 40 years ago!

Rip Off Britain

A recent episode of TV’s ‘Rip off Britain‘ highlighted the substitution of other meats for lamb in a comparatively high proportion of UK Curry houses. In fairness, it wasn’t horse, rat or rhinoceros but either beef or mutton. Now if I was a Hindu then beef would be a religious insult so I can understand the concern in that direction even though the blind testers seemed to thoroughly enjoy the substitute.

As regards ‘mutton’, when cooked over a decent period, it is as tender, if not more so than lamb. So in a carnivorous sense a bit of a storm in a baltibowl, in reality. Incidentally, most Balti Houses will advertise Balti Meat which will be mutton but usually none the worse for that.