Ex Blues cult hero and Senegalese manager Alou Cisse is in the news with their match against England imminent. Interestingly there is a balti connection which occurred when the now closed Royal Naim added an Alou Balti to raise money for the ferry disaster victims which tragically affected his family.
Highlights of the Balti included Senegalese top food exports of peanuts, beans and cassava … and yes it was a really tasty balti!
This was an enjoyable visit to the Spice Merchant, one of Kings Heath’s only two genuine balti houses. Early signs were good with prompt service in very comfortable surroundings. My aubergine pakora was fresh and tasty with just the right amount of batter. My main was a Balti Chicken with chunks of tender chicken languishing in a rich sauce. This included some fresh ginger which definitely gave it a real zing. Overall a very enjoyable meal and incidentally the poppadoms were crispy and the naan bread was fresh and doughy … two things that often let a typical Balti House down.
The fight to get the genuine balti recognised and protected goes on. UNESCO run a scheme under their cultural banner which includes the universally popular,(?) Azerbaijan Flatbread being recognised.
Bids have to be sponsored by central government and an approach to DCMS met with the response that they would be interesting in supporting. a bid but we’re too overworked to register with UNESCO but hoped to do so sometime. in the future.
It’s a hard life for civil servants working from home over tea and biscuits!
Another journey across the City to visit an old favourite … The Khyber Pass. A warm welcome, good service and excellent food. Starters were chicken tikka and onion bhaji. Whilst they were verging on fire engine red this shouldn’t detract from their freshness an excellent flavour.
Mains were a balti chicken korma for her and a balti lamb and mushroom for me. Tender meat in a rich sauce served up sizzling in traditional black Balti bowls. Nice doughy garlic naan was the accompaniment.
Incidentally, there is a sweet centre next door and we took home a rich buffalo milk barfi … a rare and unexpected treat!
I was kindly invited by the Centre of Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship to an event co sponsored by the Bangladeshi Restaurant Association to look at sustainability issues in a hard pressed section of the private sector.
The Centre kindly sent out a questionnaire of mine inviting restaurants who cooked an authentic Balti to complete to check if they were the Balti ‘real deal’.
Surprise surprise (or maybe not!) despite some of them having the word ‘Balti’ in their restaurant name, not one of the thirty odd restaurants at the event rose to the challenge. Maybe that says something about the Bangladeshi Restaurant community and the Balti!
Last week, I talked to some students at Queensbridge School about the history of Balti as part of their excellent project highlighting all things Birmingham. It was great to see Balti featuring in their poetry highlighting their love for their City …. definitely some budding poets and artists and a credit to their School!
Balti seems to have made a good impression in Canada, thanks to a press visit during the Commonwealth Games! ….
Interesting to note that the recent English Curry Awards 2022 held in Birmingham didn’t feature one genuine Balti restaurant. It’s also a fair bet that all the award winners were of Bangladeshi rather than Pakistani derivation. It would be interesting to find out whether the organisers even knew what was an authentic Balti!
In preparation for the opening of the Commonwealth Games, BBC Sports visited the Triangle and were taken to a few shops to get a feel for this unique part of the city. As one would expect they visited the iconic Shababs to both film and taste a proper Brummie Balti. Other stops included Raja Bros supermarket, a local sweet centre, a sari shop, a jewellers and a Pakistani truck stop style restaurant … all good ‘PR’ for the City!’
