With apologies to Bangladesh

I am feeling rather loathe to blog these days. Perhaps the recent TTs have been too much of a cheat? I don't feel I've got anything to shout about really! This week could seem like I was really scraping the barrel. I decided that really the aim of this project was to get my kids eating a wider range of food, but recently I have realised that encouraging them to eat some weird Brazilian cake is all very well, but slightly misses the point if the likelihood is that we'll never have that cake again. So, I have decided that this autumn will see us revisiting some 'popular' countries (aka those with good takeaways nearby!) so that we can branch out from Pizza Express as our restaurant of choice, and rock up anywhere for a meal without complaints and moans.

So, out came the Anglo Asian menu card, and suddenly we were on our way to 'Bangladesh'. I did do some cursory web research to check out what country our 'Indian' take aways really originate in, but the most I could get was that Balti dishes may have originally come from the Baltistan region of Pakistan. My own experience of authentic Indian food on the subcontinent was so far removed from anything I have ever eaten at a 'curry' house here in the UK that I feel (sort of) OK with extending the label of the Anglo Asian from 'Indian' to 'Bangladeshi'. But this little introduction is really a confession to all those for whom true Bangladeshi cuisine means a great deal more than a phone call to a Stock Newington take away.

THE DISH
Chicken korma
Murgh Makhani
Lamb passanda
channa massala
Bombay potato
home made (!) poppadums
home made raita
 
THE REACTION
For some reason Youngest was around and up for helping with the preparation. Which was lovely because I am sure it helps him get his head around trying the food. He made the raita and fried the poppadums - which was great until I put them in the oven to keep warm and burnt them all! Good job AA delivered some more. He enthusiastically dipped his poppadums into all the bowls of strange looking dips (which I never do!) but this maybe because they look like they're made of melted boiled sweets! And then made his way through a bit of chicken with generic 'mild' sauce and only had a very small bit of tomato ketchup on his rice.


THE VERDICT
To be honest, the shocking reality was that all the dishes were just a bit too creamy and sweet. Eldest had recently had a chick pea curry at school and was not impressed with the AA version 'it's too sweet', and I had to agree with her. The murgh makhani was a bit too much like korma - but maybe with a bit more 'kick' but I have to say that the chicken you get in these dishes always seems a little 'processed' to say the least. Surely there's a gap in the market for 'real' Indian restaurants? Even the lamb passanda sauce looked just like korma and the lamb was a bit tough. It came with a 'special egg friend rice' which seemed to be slightly crossing continents but which all the kids liked (ye-hay). The potato dish provided our only respite from cream and coconut, and it was fresh and tomatoey. Which meant, of course, that the boys didn't eat it, but the rest of us enjoyed it.

Mr Middle: Mum, I have tried that cucumber stuff.  Me: Nice? Mr Middle: No

At the last minute I remembered I'd brought nan bread ages ago. It's been in the freezer for 18 months so I felt very pleased with myself for getting them out to heat up but I totally forgot them in the oven and now their charred tendons are in the recycling bucket.  Ho hum. So, note for next curry take away: order some dishes that don't come in pale orange gloop! Maybe even make my own with happy chickens... now there's a thought!

At least we managed to get out the world map and talk a bit about Bangladesh, listen to some of its fabulous folk music and wonder at the flag, which I had no idea looked like this!

Having looked at the menu card again today I notice that they have a little section, which I didn't see when I ordered on line, called 'Bangladeshi village fish varieties'! Damn, had I seen that before we might have even been a little more authentic, as well as enjoying a generic curry!