6 ALBA Saturday January 13 2024 ALBA 7

the times

Best curry house in Britain? Hardd to say. It’s certainly brilliant value
frazzled, under intense time pressure. Persian levels of preserved lemon
The Radhuni looks tiny from outside. tang. My beloved finds the gravy a bit How it Drink of “What drink could a fun restaurant on the Method
Old-school British- It’s hard to believe a 120-cover curry one-note, but I love its simplicity and better marry corner of Hope Street 1 Add ice cubes to a
house lurks in there. And yet here it floral bitterness. My rogan josh — a rated the week Caribbean flair and St Vincent Street. highball glass with the rum
Bangladeshi food like all is. The tables upon tables covered
with white tablecloths. The silver
Kashmiri classic on the menu of every
Indian and Bangladeshi curry house
with the spirit of
Glasgow than a Ingredients
and falernum syrup, and stir
well until the glass is cold to
this is part of our trolleys. The warm, proud service and in the land — is just the thing: front- Bru & stormy spiced rum cocktail 25ml RedLeg spiced the touch.
lemon-scented hand towels to finish. loaded with garlic and ginger, heavy Food with an Irn-Bru rum 2 Add ice cubes to the top
national heritage, says The only thing missing is the Hindi on the tomatoes and chilli, not too mixer?” asks 25ml falernum syrup of the glass and top up
Chitra Ramaswamy movie soundtrack, and it’s sorely hot, not too oily. The naan also 8 Ben Hibbard from the About 200ml Irn-Bru with Irn-Bru.
missed. For it is a truth nationally deserves a special mention for its Caribbean-inspired 2 dashes of bitters 3 Add the bitters, garnish
acknowledged that what we really pillowy — but, crucially, not dense — Service Turtle Bay, Turtle Bay chain, A slice of lime, to with a lime slice, and serve

O
n the high street of
a Midlothian
commuter town
on Edinburgh’s
outskirts lies, wait
for it, the best curry
restaurant in the
UK. It’s in Loanhead, east of the
Pentlands, south of the city bypass
and — as many Edinburghers will
know it — a short hop from Ikea. And
frankly is there any more
quintessentially British outing than a
whizz round Ikea for a Billy bookcase
followed by a jalfrezi? Still, best curry
in Britain? Big claim.
The Radhuni, which means
passionate cook in Bengali, has the
gongs to prove it. Its executive chef,
Matin Khan — born in Bangladesh,
raised in Cambridge — also owns the
multi-award-winning Itihaas in
Dalkeith and was this year named the
UK’s top curry chef at the Curry Life
awards. And the Radhuni, run by his
son Habibur Khan, won best curry
restaurant in Britain. It’s also one of
only three Indian restaurants in
Scotland to hold an AA rosette.
To which I say, why only three?
But that’s a separate conversation
about how we value, or rather
undervalue, the skill, complexity
and heritage of eastern cuisines.
Anyway, I can now add to the
Radhuni’s list of accolades: Best
Value Lunch I’ve Eaten in For
Ever. Just £12.95 for two courses,
including a starter, curry, naan or
rice, and for an extra quid coffee
or ice cream. Plus the portions are
big enough to mean curry, again,
for dinner. My idea of a great day.
I come with my beloved in time-
honoured parental mode: starving,
want with our poppadoms is not
soulless piano muzak but Lata
Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar.
The Radhuni’s poppadoms, by the
way, are superlative: warm and
smashing into shards under the
slightest pressure. They’re served
with fresh homemade chutneys; none
of that onion in red gloop nonsense.
(Which, yes, being British, I love too.)
Sabzi pakora — veg dipped in a
spiced gram flour batter and deep
fried — are tangly, rustling, chestnut-
hued. Giant but disarmingly light.
Chicken tikka, cooked in a clay oven,
blushes decorously with red food
colouring, and, as things were before
the thigh became king, is made with
breast meat. This is proper old-school
British-Bangladeshi food — authentic
only to itself, and now rightly viewed
as a heritage cuisine of its own.
The curry choices on the lunch
menu are fantastic. Korma, karai
gosht and saag, but also the lesser-
known murgh mango and shatkora
lamb, made with the rinds of a
Bangladeshi citrus fruit, giving it
The Radhuni serves korma but also
lesser-known dishes like murgh mango
texture. The only dish that doesn’t Glasgow which has opened garnish with a straw.
pack the expected punch is lamb 10
chops from the à la carte tandoori
section. They’re pink and juicy, but I Atmosphere
want more gnarly char, more garam
masala in the marinade, just more. 8
This traditional style of Indian and
Bangladeshi restaurant has been in
Britain since, well, Britain has been in What we ate
India. For aeons Veeraswamy on Three-course lunch for
Regent Street, London, was spoken of £13.95pp
as the UK’s first Indian restaurant: Sabzi pakora
founded in 1926 by a white British- Chicken tikka kebab
Indian army officer, with decor Shatkora lamb
evoking the palaces of the Maharajas. Chicken rogan josh
But increasingly it’s acknowledged Pilau rice
that Indian restaurants have been Naan
here for centuries. Some say the first Coffee x 2
opened in 1773 in Haymarket. A green Extras
plaque in Marylebone reads “Site of Lamb chops, £14.95
Hindoostane Coffee House, 1810, Poppadoms and
London’s first Indian restaurant”. On chutneys for two,
the debate goes. £4.50
And now, as more restaurants Cucumber raita, £2.50
specialising in regional south Asian
cuisines open these old-style places
are closing down. To give just one What we
emotional example: the India Club, drank
opened on the Strand in 1951 and Ginger beer, £4.25
frequented by my father when he Kingfisher beer, £4.25
arrived here in the late 1960s, hosted
its final service in September. + 3 x takeaway
However you feel about the hybrid containers, £3
cuisine these immigrants created Total for two
largely for the white British palate, £61.35
these old curry houses preserve our
shared colonial history in plates of
chicken korma and tikka masala,
brought to the table by second, third,
even fourth generation British south
Asians. We should cherish those that
are left. Especially the really good
ones, like the Radhuni.
The Radhuni, 93 Clerk Street,
Loanhead; theradhuni.co.uk

The all-day breakfast — Kiwi-style A legendary Mull pub goes

posh and Rio hits Edinburgh
Sweetcorn and red pepper fritters
Recipe of the week Serves 4 Method think they are ready, Table scraps
Day or night, hot or Ingredients 1 Tip the sweetcorn gently break one apart to

340g tin of sweetcorn in brine
cold, these fritters are 1 small red onion, finely diced
1 red pepper, finely diced
a healthy treat, says 1 small courgette, grated
1 small sweet potato, peeled
the Mountain Cafe’s and grated
3 spring onions, finely sliced
Kirsten Gilmour into thin rounds
1 small red chilli, finely diced
An absolute Kiwi classic. (leave the seeds in if you
Healthy, light and tasty, like a kick)
these bad boys are great for 1 handful of coriander,
any time of day or night. stalks removed, leaves
They are excellent cold roughly chopped
as a snack or in packed Zest and juice of 1 lemon
lunches too. If you’re 2 large eggs
dairy-free, leave out the 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
sour cream. Sometimes I 2 tsp salt
like to garnish with a light 1½ tsp black pepper
drizzle of sweet chilli sauce. 200g self-raising flour
You can try them with bacon, 2 tsp olive oil
avocado and our slow-roasted 100ml sour cream
tomatoes as a brunch/ A handful of salad leaves
breakfast dish – amazing. 400g hot-smoked salmon
They make really cool wee Honey mustard dressing
canapés too.
and its brine into a
large bowl with the
red onion, red pepper,
courgette, sweet
potato, spring onions,
chilli, coriander and
lemon zest and juice,
and mix until
thoroughly combined.
Crack the eggs into the
bowl and add the chilli
sauce, salt and pepper,
and mix again. Fold in
the flour until you have
a thick, spoonable
batter. The batter will
keep for eight hours in
the fridge.
2 Preheat a nonstick pan over
a medium heat, drizzle in a
teaspoon of the olive oil and use
kitchen paper to wipe it over the
base of the pan. Now drop large
spoonfuls of batter into the hot
pan — you need to get 12 fritters
out of your mix to serve four
people, so make them about
7cm in diameter. You will
probably need to work in
batches. Gently cook on both
sides until golden brown, flipping
as little as possible. When you
check the inside is cooked.
Re-oil the pan if you need
to and repeat with the
rest of the batter.
3 Lay out four fritters on
plates. Spoon some sour
cream onto each one,
then add a few salad
leaves and a piece of
salmon and drizzle with
a little honey mustard
dressing. Put another
fritter on top of each one
to make a stack, and add
another layer of fillings.
Finish with a third fritter
and serve — if your stacks
look precarious use a
skewer to hold them together.
Taken from The Mountain Cafe
Cookbook: A Kiwi in the
Cairngorms by Kirsten Gilmour
(£20, Kitchen Press). Buy
from timesbookshop.co.uk.
Discount for Times+ members
E
xciting news from Mull,
where the Mishnish hotel
in Tobermory has just
opened a new fine-dining
restaurant. An Cala Ciuin,
right, is headed up by Ross Caithness,
who has previously worked under
Tom Kitchin and Martin Wishart. It
will offer an eight-course seasonal
taster menu for £90pp with paired
wines for an additional £50pp, as well
as an à la carte menu. Dishes
showcase Mull’s local producers, such
as an Isle of Mull langoustine with a
shellfish consommé from the
Tobermory Fish Co and Glengorm
beef cheek served with bone marrow lunch and £39.95 for evening sittings
and truffle (ancalaciuin.co.uk) all week) and you can watch the chefs
Opening soon for the first time in prepare dishes from the central bar
Scotland is the Brazilian steakhouse while meat is carved at the table in a
Rio. Located in the Assembly Rooms traditional rodizio style. You can get
on Edinburgh’s George Street, Rio pretty much any cut of steak you like,
serves unlimited Brazilian churrasco- but the menu also includes linguica
style meat and gourmet salads. The sausages, caramelised pork and spicy
menu is a set price (£26.95 for chicken wings (rio-steakhouse.co.uk).
weekday lunch, £29.95 for weekend Carla Jenkins