Accompanied by a family-nan, there is surely no more restorative, tasty and cheap meal to be found anywhere than a Balti. It means ‘bucket’ in Hindi, and was invented in Birmingham. I gather it’s a version of the wok-cooked curries of the Pakistan highlands – the source of a good number of Birmingham’s sub-continental immigrants – made stew-like to appease local, Welsh-influenced tastes. The authentic Balti, if such a description can be used, is still only to be found in Brum.
I told an Indian friend about the Balti once. To his ears, I must have asked him if he’d ever tried eating a bucket. Even after my explanation, he was fairly incredulous.
I would recommend a mushroom-and-dhal (it’s the only food I’ve come across that’s better vegetarian) with a family nan if you’re a party of more than one. Eat it without cutlery, the bread serves perfectly well. Yasser’s, on the Pershore Road, used to be very good, especially as there’s an offy next door to pick up a four-pack (Balti Houses are generally unlicensed: shop-bought Kestrel makes your meal even better value).
I like to think I played a small part in the popularisation of the dish. I lived in Brum for a year when I was just starting out in the world of work, in an area called Stirchley. Standing in the back-garden you could smell Cadbury’s chocolate as it wafted over from the Bournville factory.
A short while later I was going out with a girl who was a producer on TV-am, the old ITV breakfast channel. She had to fix some features for when the show was to be broadcast from Birmingham. I suggested the Balti – as remote from West London then as its sub-continental origins – would be a great thing to discover on a breakfast show.
She must have been desperate so fixed up the feature. Shortly afterwards the Balti invaded the menu of Indian restaurants in nearly every town in the country. The transformative power of breakfast television. But as I said, these imitation Baltis are generally inauthentic and taste nothing like the real thing. I would guess it’s something to do with the red hot, multi-shelved baking ovens the Brummy Balti chefs use.
I liked Birmingham, even back then, in the pre-Selfridges, pre-International Conference Centre days. The people are friendly, as is the accent, which is now, thanks to Adrian Chiles, acceptable even on national TV. Underrated metropolitan and university art galleries with some nice Pre-Rapaelites. The Central Markets are (or were) good for fish. And of course the Balti.
I believe I had positive feelings about the city even before I’d ever been there (some may say this is when you are most likely to feel positive about Birmingham). Did you know that if you stand not too far from the Rollright Stones on the top of the Cotswold escarpment on a sunny day and look north over Warwickshire’s green plain, you can just make out the glittering of windows as the sunlight catches the tower blocks of the city’s southern suburbs? It may also be that if the wind is in the right direction you can just about pick up the delicate whiff of Balti spices, even at that distance. However, that’s probably just the suggestive power of a well-curried imagination…
I still smile at the pun used in that insurance advert – Balti Towers. I wonder if it’s a real restaurant.
”I told an Indian friend about the Balti once. To his ears, I must have asked him if he’d ever tried eating a bucket. Even after my explanation, he was fairly incredulous.”
Goodness gracious me!?
Interesting how we all still refer to any asian restaurant as an ‘Indian’ even though many of the restaurants seem to be pakistani or bangladeshi in origin. Would be like going to a ‘British’ restaurant in India and being served bratwurst and sauerkraut…
I’ll be driving around Brum later this afternoon. As you say, the very centre of Brum is quite cool. The rest is a barren wasteland of crappy tiny victorian terraces and naff 70’s suburbia where everyone goes on the sunbed, drives an audi TT and is ‘considerably richer than yow’
Luckily for me I can’t eat Baltis anymore as they make me really sick
Don’t know that advert, Ian. But there is a Balti Towers restaurant in Brum.
Worm: Er, Edgbaston is nice. I wonder what abuse led to you developing a Balti allergy?
”Eat it without cutlery, the bread serves perfectly well.”
According to A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a crust of bread is even better than a spoon.
In my backpacking days, I went along to Serangoon Road in Singapore to have a decent curry. Downstairs was strictly for locals, upstairs for westerners – as posh as anything you’d expect in a western city – but I was tickled to see a row of eight white porcelain wash hand basins along one wall of the seating area. It is the only restaurant where I’ve been required to wash my hands before going to the toilet as well as after.
You are right, Edgbaston/Harborne Rd. is nice, has some good shops and also some pleasantly proportioned victorian housing stock…wouldn’t want to live there though
…im not allergic to Baltis specifically! I just can no longer eat a couple of kilos of spicy food and bread without getting green around the gills. Getting soft in my old age
‘Well curried imagination’ – love it! If you’re ever in West London, there’s a super little Bangladeshi restaurant called Akash at 500A Edgware Road – a rather amusing review of which can be read here.
Agree about the B’ham accent: I’ve always found it warm and comforting, with a pleasant sing-song intonation not unlike some Welsh accents. It’s strange that it should be regarded as the phonetic equivalent of a bad smell.
This could be down to early associations on my part, I suppose: a lot of my older relatives, all now gone, spoke that way (to be more precise with a Black Country accent, which is just perceptibly different — there’s a trace of a rural burr).
Have to admit I like Baltis considerably more than I do Brum and its accent, which always sounds, well, gormless. Brum to me is one big dirty traffic jam at the centre of a spiderweb of Mock Tudor-lined dual carriageways. Doubtless this is grossly unfair.
Kindly ladies asking, ‘Yow orroight dere, Girith?’ will always make me think of the Brummie accent with affection. The city’s geography is harder to defend.
Thanks for the tip, Susan. Always useful to have of a good Indian on hand, wherever you happen to be. I must have driven past that place dozens of times and have never noticed it.
Interesting how we all still refer to any asian restaurant as an ‘Indian’ even though many of the restaurants seem to be pakistani or bangladeshi in origin. Would be like going to a ‘British’ restaurant in India and being served bratwurst and sauerkraut…
Hardly, as there is a sound historical basis for using the term: Bangladesh was part of Pakistan until 1971, and Pakistan was part of India until Partition in 1947. Changing the terminology because of some (possibly temporary) political realignment would be mere pedantry. (Should I refer to East Powys as “Shropshire” just because the Saxons are occupying at the moment??)
Furthermore, if there is a parallel it would be going to an “Austrian” restaurant and being served Hungarian dishes.
I guess that’s told you, Worm…
guilty as charged!!!
Sir Watkin provides an admirably accurate reading of 20th century geo-politics. However, in his objectivity, he misses the point. I was merely pointing out an observation that from the point of view of your typical proudly Pakistani or Bangladeshi restaurant owner, having everybody refer to your national dishes as Indian must be a trifle odd. Is that pedantry?