Monday 13 July 2015

Today’s caption was said by Joseph Stalin during World War 2 when it was pointed out to him that the Germans made tanks that were of much higher quality than Russian ones but could not manufacture nearly as many).

I’m not sure how one gets from Russian tanks to Asian food but I just did!

Much as I enjoy cooking it and happy as I may be with the results, it’s always a pleasure to visit an Indian restaurant (actually we refer to them as Indian but they’re nearly all Bangladeshi serving Punjabi food) to see how the professionals do things.

Sometimes it wants to be a really good restaurant like the 29029 in Sandford (written about a couple of weeks ago), but sometimes what I want is quantity and I get a hankering to do a  buffet.

I’ve had this hankering for a couple of weeks now but last night I indulged it; the Spice Bazaar restaurant in Dartmouth does a wonderful buffet every Sunday evening – £11.95 for all you can eat.

Starters were some lovely Malabar chicken pieces and onion bhajis (not one of my favourites but more than compensated for by the chicken) served with a salad.

To follow were Kashmir chicken, garlic lamb, a fish curry (and exceptionally nice it was too), potatoes and chick peas (channa aloo), dal and pilao rice.  Freshly made naan breads were brought to the table separately.

What I like is the variety which is why when  I make Asian food, I usually make 6-8 (at least) dishes, which of course feeds us for he next week or so.  To order that many dishes in a normal restaurant would cost a fortune and so we get back to the buffet.

Only criticism might be the choice of vegetable dish – something more ‘vegetably’ would have suited us better but it was very good to eat, excellent value, served by very pleasant local staff (unusually NOT Asian), and fulfilled my longing (well, hankering – ‘longing’ maybe a bit strong) for lots of different dishes.

Highly recommended (as indeed I did to the couple gazing at the menu outside as we were leaving).