The Daily Mail recently published an article on the top 40 destinations to visit in the UK. Pleasingly balti was third but yet again the photo of a  normal curry serving plate didnt do Birmingham’s iconic dish any justice.

Revealed: The 40 UK travel experiences to try before you turn 40, with stargazing in Northumberland No.1 and a spectacular Scottish road trip ranking second. 

Third place in the ranking goes to a visit to Birmingham’s Balti Triangle, the culinary birthplace of the ‘Balti’ curry, followed by a canal boat staycation in fourth.

For Fathers’ Day, my daughter thoughtfully bought me an interesting little book called ‘The Philosophy of Curry’ about the history of curry by Sejal Sukhadwala who apparently is a regular contributor to the Guardian Time Out and BBC Food. Furthermore, her book comes with a testimonial from the gushing Nigella Lawson who further gushes ‘a Magisterial Must Read’.  In fairness, it’s an interesting look at the history of curry until it comes to the matter of the derivation of balti. To quote … ‘based on the food in Baltistan’ (WRONG!) and not a word about it’s proper derivation and also clarifying the balti pan’s customized Birmingham shape, the materials used ie. thin pressed steel not cast iron etc and the critical fact that the balti is both fast cooked and served in the same balti pan. So Birmingham and balti gets yet another raw and uninformed deal from a foodie writer. Why am I not surprised?

There’s been a lot of publicity over Johnny Depp and his crew splashing out a supposed £50,000 on a ‘do’ at Broad Street’s Varanasi. Not sure who his adviser was but he could have had a real taste of Brum by buying 5,000 proper baltis with a naan bread as an accompaniment or perhaps more practically entertained his party of 50 for around a tenth of the price and got his champagne from the local offie … leaving over forty grand for a worthwhile charity. 

Perhaps his expensive shindig says something about the man!