Herts

Growing up in the wilds of late C20th Norfolk, one of the very few ‘ethnic’ (for such was it called at the time …) cuisines on hand was Indian. We used to haunt the sole Indian grocer on Magdalen St – Mayers I think it was called – fingering huge packets of black cardamoms and daring each other to take a whiff of the Bombay duck kept somewhat shamefully on the top shelf. Extraordinary aromas: seductive, dangerous, evocative of something not yet quite known. A few restos doted the Norwich blandscape, too. Pretty standard fayre, mostly cooked by folk from Bangladesh and the east-African Gujarati diaspora we later heard.

A few years' studenting in the West Midlands meant living almost exclusively on baltis. And then London with its Brick Lanes and Drummond Streets. Since then, I’ve eaten the food of Indian communities – from restaurants, road-side stalls and family homes – in many countries (most memorably Thailand, Nepal, South Africa, Malaysia; less so France, California, Ireland …). And in the motherland, of course, with foods inspired by Ayurvedic teachings, caste-led prohibitions, ancient traditions and new fusions as well as the simple joys of taste, availability and even basic subsistence. All of which continues to prove that ‘Indian’ food doesn’t exist at all – so various and changing are the ingredients and methods of its regions’ cuisines. 

Yes, I’ve eaten quite a few ‘currys’ in my time …

An Indian street-food restaurant set in the glamour of a Tring carpark doesn’t sound a promising addition to anyone's CV, I’ll grant you. So non-descript is the exterior that you will doubt my professionalism, sanity even, as you walk up the stairs to the first-floor eating hall. Have faith, though, and you will be rewarded with a gaggle of smiling staff and the fantastic cacophony of smells, colours, sounds that somehow captures the essence of this uncategorisable country in an instant. Turquoise, saffron, cinnabar and azure vibrate from the walls along with vast murals: here a painted bus, over there Ghandi and Mother Teresa looking on intently (or perhaps hungrily)? Slogans roar from the bar – Latin script and beautiful Devanagari shouting ‘India is great’. Yes, we call back ... four poppadoms and a bottle of house red too, please.

Mercifully, the street food concept is kept to snacks and nibbly bits: dosas, lacey and crisp; chaat and pani puri; excellent samosas; Anglo-Indian scotch eggs with pots of sweet, hot and tangy chutneys; Sri Lankan lamb rolls. Somewhere, a tandoor is working overtime to produce paneer shashlik marinated with sweet & sour pickling spices and achari halloumi, every bit as wonderful as the procession of charred and crusted lamb chops, prawns etc. And here come the Goans, the Parsees, the Kashmiris, the Maharashtrans. We dug deep into their Regional Specialities for an aromatic Coorgi coconut lamb with cardamom & saffron (from what is now Karnataka), sweet, fiery Bengali beef stir-fried with ginger, chilli, onions & peppers and a silky Rajistani venison curry, aromatic and complex. And who could resist the call of caramelised-butter fried rice, the promise of beautifully cooked okra and the velvet hug of a black-lentil dhal so much finer than the average dispiriting gloop? 

I still dream of the peerless parathas cooked fresh in the Cardamom Hills of Kerela but Pheriwala’s come a close second. Maybe sneak in a garlic and olive oil naan, too, and masala fries (for which I developed a mild obsession in Kathmandu … ). Have them with an extra order of vindaloo sauce. Oh happy, desi days. 

I doubt you'd go wrong with anything from the excitingly wide-ranging menu. This was superb pan-Indian cooking, some of the best I’ve eaten outside its homeland (quite possibly within its borders, too). And as you now know, I’ve undertaken rather a lot of comparative research in my travels ...

We opted for a Nasik Valley Shiraz from Soul Tree to drink, as much in support of the nascent Maharashtran wine industry as anything. You might prefer one of the array of IPAs and Indian lagers or to construct your own G&T from an extensive menu of gins, tonics and garnishes. The botonicals, citrus and icy quinine spritz of the latter go so very well with spiced food; beer with curry is, of course, a veritable institution.