The Balti

I was somewhat taken a back when the waiter responded to my “vegetable Balti and plain naan please” request with “exactly which vegetable Balti would you like sir?”. My quest has never been so free! As they didn’t have a mixed vegetable Balti on the menu, and I think it’s pretty insulting to order off menu in any establishment, I went for the vegetable, chana, dal and spinach Balti. As the jet black Balti bowl arrived at the table radiating like a lump of kryptonite, I was glad that my quest had begun and ended with a traditional Balti experience. This one was thick with more-red-than-brown gravy, which tasted pretty balanced spice wise, perhaps a little heavy handed on the paprika, and with an unfortunate slight burnt taste in the back of the throat. As promised the Balti was full of chana (chickpeas), dal (yellow split lentils), spinach (shredded), but pretty easy on the vegetables – in fact apart from a solitary slice of raw tomato, the only detectable veg were a few small new potatoes, almost certainly of the tinned variety. This wasn’t a bad Balti though – if they had added some fresh veg and coriander, and managed to get rid of the niggling burnt-ness in the sauce, it would actually be a really great curry.

The Naan

Harrumph, I’m getting depressed about this now. Another standard naan bread made with self raising flour, on the dry side, would have been better brushed with a little ghee. Cheap though at only a quid.

Overall I didn’t have  a terrible meal, and I was glad to be ending my quest at one of the potential homes of the Balti, eating a traditional version of this famous dish.

My Roop Chanda starter – lovely and crisp on the outside with meaty white flesh, accompanied by a well dressed salad:

A tray-ful of naan dough ready to be rolled out and cooked:

One of their naan’s cooking in the tandoor:

Chef rolling out ‘my’ naan dough (see previous post):

Chicken curry being cooked:

The Balti

Gentlemanly partner-owner Afthab Rahman, who’s joining me at this weeks public Balti debate, had done his research, and subsequently my vegetable Balti was stuffed full of okra which I adore, alongside potato, tomato, aubergine, peas, and fresh green chillies – it was nice and hot, which almost overpowered me at one point but I was probably gobbling it down too fast. The Balti was heavy on the vegetables and less so on the gravy, but that’s not to say it was lacking in flavour – it was a vibrant curry with a fresh citrus tang and punchy fresh coriander,  in the same ball park as the curry I had at Grameen Khana, though not quite reaching their dizzy heights. The only disappointment really was that it wasn’t cooked in the traditional Balti way, instead coming to the table in a clean steel serving dish, with a plate for decanting onto.

The Naan

Although I’m a bit biased, having taken my own dough to the restaurant to be made into naan to accompany my meal, flavour-wise, this was the best naan yet. Instead of the usual self-raising flour and egg combo used in every restaurant I’ve eaten in so far, I used a yoghurt, milk and plain flour recipe where the yoghurt, milk and a little of the flour is prefermented with a little bakers yeast, before adding water, more flour, salt and fennel seeds, and allowing it to rise. By the time I arrived at the restaurant, the dough had risen nicely, and was ready to cook. The tandoori chef expertly rolled it out and shaped it by slapping between his oiled palms, before gracefully chucking it onto the side wall of the tandoor for about 90 seconds of cooking. It was skillfully removed with cast iron tandoor tongs, and served nice and hot. It smelled and tasted slightly sour from the fermented yoghurt, just as it should, and a far cry from the chemical smell of ‘normal’ naan breads (we had one at the table for comparison). It didn’t taste yeasty as there was a relatively small amount in the dough, and if anything the fennel seeds rather dominated the flavour, I’ll reduce the amount next time or include onion seeds instead. Disappointingly the naan didn’t puff up half as much as the normal naan’s and so didn’t have the fluffy mouth feel that we’ve come to expect. The dough was a little over-proofed when it came to cooking it though so it may have already expended most of it’s carbon dioxide, I’ll try baking it a little earlier next time.

So overall a good experience at Mint – they have lots of Bangladeshi specialities on the menu, such as the perfectly cooked sea fish Roop Chanda that I started with, and they definitely have one eye on the environment when it comes to things like recycling and food sourcing, so definitely worth hunting down and supporting if you’re over in Yardley. Find out more on their website.

The Balti

Served in a searingly hot black Balti dish, and on our table within about 8 minutes of ordering, I was immenseley pleased with this very fresh tasting, seemingly authentic Balti. The vegetables were perfectly cooked – melt-in-the-mouth courgette and al dente carrot chunks, along with plenty of potato (which I love in curry), peas, onions and fresh tomato. Pre-cooking the veg was the very first task performed by chef Azam, we were informed by our busy waiter (the only one on on a hectic Thursday evening), which I suppose shouldn’t have surprised me given the speed of delivery of our food. There was plenty of fresh chilli in there too, along with a definite smokiness, presumably from paprika. Although this wasn’t as good a curry as Grameen Khana, it was definitely the best Balti so far – a deliciously authentic experience!

The Naan

Sadly another soda bread naan, though it was cooked well. I didn’t bother confirming whether it was made with self-raising flour with the waiter, the chemical whiff was instant on tearing open the bread. I’ve heard about a great naan shop over in Cape Hill, perhaps I’ll venture over there soon…

The Balti really was fab – I will definitely be returning to Al Frash, together with a slow pre-dinner stroll up the Ladypool Road, it’s the kind of place I would bring visitors for an authentic Balti experience.

The Balti

Firstly, this was no Balti and it didn’t claim to be, but this was my birthday and I didn’t care. Secondly, if you go on a date at Hajee’s don’t order the Paya – it ain’t pretty to eat. Fortunately I was among friends, and they didn’t seem to mind me shovelling bones into my mouth and munching on the marrow, meat, and sinew – this could have been a disatastorous (and chewy) meal if under -done, but these trotters had clearly been braised for a very long time, leaving them succombing and almost sweet. They were surrounded by a gorgeous thin sauce, tasting somewhere between a well made lamb gravy and a madras curry – I was glad the waiter warned me off the magz.

The Naan

Better than most of the naan I’ve eaten so far – it still had a faint chemical whiff, but smelled yeasty too – the waiter assured me they used both yeast and self-raising flour, which seems odd, but it’s definitely an improvement.

I’d like to return to Hajee’s when this project’s over, they have a decent menu which is fortunately about half the size of a lot of curry houses. There are a few other things I’d like to try – I might even brave the Magz!

The Balti

Cabbage? In a Balti? Are you serious? Obviously they were, as there was lots of it! It was accompanied, in the spotlessly clean silver serving dish, by carrots, peas, onions, and potatoes – this was soggy sunday roast leftovers in a Balti. To be fair they did put some green pepper in there to make it a bit more exotic, and actually, despite there being very little of it, the sauce tasted pretty good with lots of chilli, ginger, and loads of fresh coriander. The cabbage did dominate though as it was in virtually every mouthful, the overcooked sulfur flavour overpowering the other vegetables, and most importantly the sauce. My table-mates had better experiences though – I looked jealously at a matthak paneer, kindney bean curry and tarka dhal – hmm, damn those rules.

The Naan

I was expecting great things from this naan bread, so I enquired straight off with the waiter whether they used self-raising flour in the breads. Sadly, he confirmed they did. To be fair though, if he hadn’t told me it would have been hard to tell, it didn’t have the chemical smell that I’ve been getting used to. I’m almost tempted to think that they use half and half with plain white flour, and perhaps even, say it quietly,  some yeast in the dough. It was large, perfectly cooked, super soft, and a pleasing sourness from the diary product used in the dough – I think it was yoghurt. It was probably the best naan bread of the lot so far, and I wish I’d done a bit more digging into its origins.

So the food wasn’t amazing, but this place had a charm about it, a laid-back, no-rush, lahore-cafe feel. A place I could see myself returning to for a quick lunchtime bite perhaps. I won’t be ordering a vegetable Balti though…

The Balti

The meal arrived in a spotless silver ‘balti’ dish, meaning it probably wasn’t an authentic balti experience. It was however, a pleasing balance of flavours, with quite a good hit of fresh chillies. There wasn’t a huge amount of sauce, but it was packed full of vegetables, majoring on okra (lady fingers, bhindi), which fortunately, I adore. The flavours were well balanced, with no one flavour shouting above another, but for my tastes, there wasn’t enough fresh coriander in there. Overall, a pretty good meal, I just wish I knew I was going to be reviewing it when I ate it, I would have paid more attention!

The Naan

As I’m getting used to now, the first rip of the naan bread revealed the disappointing whiff of chemical rasing agents – this bread was another inauthentic self-raising flour jobby. Please can I change the rules and have chapatti instead?!? It was a light fluffy bread though, searingly hot from the tandoor, and not too big for one as they sometimes can be.

Next time, I promise I’ll pay more attention! T.