Balti Birmingham

Interesting to see a book entitled from ‘Bombay to Britain‘ brought out to celebrate National Curry Week. However, it was noticeable that in featuring ‘flagship’ restaurants, apart from City centre based Pushkar, no sign of any other Brum restaurant from Opheems and Lasan to Shababs.  Yet again a Brum deal for Brum although as Millwall’s notorious fans used to sing ‘Nobody likes […]

I met a couple of friends in the Balti Triangle (one of whom uses to own a proper Baltihouse called Al Frash) and we visited one of the many new eateries to chew the fat. In fairness, I won’t reveal its name but we ordered a large Mixed Grill Tawa and a ‘Balti’ Chicken. The […]

Approaches have now been made to the City Council to agree to authenticate restaurants that serve the authentic Birmingham Balti.  Although given their financial position. they will be naturally needing more than a few pieces of silver to check out what are probably no more than around twenty restaurants  who serve the pukka version. Overall […]

Although not a particular fan of the burger (I prefer a sheekh to a shami kebab!) I happened to watch a repeat of a documentary narrated by Jo Brand about the ‘Secret’World  of Burgers. In talking about food trends they covered the Balti and blow me, they showed me tucking into a Balti … many […]

Notable Brummie Royalty and Historian Dr Carl Chinn dined out at Shababs with a large group of friends and relations who had come over from  Ireland and had enjoyed Carl’s peaky blinders tour to both work up an appetite and to learn about the history of Birmingham’s iconic dish. Only a couple of the party […]

It’s National Curry Week and no doubt there will be the usual parade of either high end nouveau cuisine ‘Indian’ restaurants and a smattering of stock Bangladeshi curry houses (yawn yawn). So why not celebrate the week by having a proper authentic Balti in either the Popular, Shababs,  or Shahi Nan Kebab House in Birmingham’s […]

‘Restaurants such as Shababs, Shahi Nan and Royal Watan rightly get the plaudits in the Balti Triangle but the lesser known Popular on the Ladypool Road deserves recognition as well. The opening gambit of crispy poppadoms was accompanied by a dip tray (at no extra cost) of which the thick creamy yoghourt dip was the […]

A recent tweet from the Mail covered a comparison of the merits of various balti sauces. The reporter was of an age where she probably didn’t even realise what a proper balti was(!) … maybe the Evening Mail editor needs to organise an evening out for his young reporters and we can set up a […]

There has only ever been one play featuring Brum’s favourite dish and one of the co-writers, Sudha Bhuchar, is doing a solo show at the MAC on 28th September … an event not to be missed!’ https://macbirmingham.co.uk/event/sudha-bhuchar-evening-conversations

Following an article in the Guardian about the reduction in number of Baltihouses in the Balti Triangle, media interest has been massive … Channel 5, BBC, ITV, BBC Radio WM, BBC Asian Network, BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio 4 and an international news agency but tellingly no interest from the local  newspapers (Post and Mail). […]