Five Years Of TATTGOC: The Curry Clubbers Speak! (Part One)
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This month, Trampy and the Tramp's Glasgow of Curry
celebrates five years of continuous spicy operation, incorporating
almost 50 legendary outings and countless weekly updates. A lot has
happened since that first fateful visit to the Indian Orchard in
Partick, and we've got a series of typically self-congratulatory posts
lined up for November before a very special Curry Club outing to mark
the occasion. After our incredible curryspondents sent telegrams of goodwill last week, now its the turn of some of the regular Curry Clubbers to explain what TATTGOC means to them ... a rare opportunity, since it's usually the Tramps doing the reporting, the very definition of unreliable narrators.
Enjoy these frontline reminiscences, and we'll be back next Thursday with even more celebrations ... including a cameo from TATTGOC's own pantomime villain, The Bulldosa.
Ravi Peshwari
First outing: Indian Orchard, Nov 2008
Green grow the rashes , O;
Green grow the rashes , O;
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent amang the lassis, O.
Trampy And The Tramp's Glasgow Of Curry? I've always thought that was a bit of a mouthful. But maybe that's the point, because it certainly has been a mouthful – and a spicy one at that. I've never eaten so much curry in my life.
Trampy and The Tramp have shown me that curry is something worth celebrating. It seems to be the ultimate ubiquitous dish these days. I even heard a reference to Chicken Tikka Masala on The Archers the other day. But the Scottish curry really has matured over the years. We've come a long way from the foil container full of ghee, with a base of chicken and gravy, that I used to eat in my hometown of Coatbridge in the early 1980s.
One of the the most memorable monthly outings for me, was the big love-in at the Kama Sutra on Valentine's Night 2012. This was the day that the Tramps set out to dispel the myth that TATTGOC was some sort of misogynistic cult, with an open invitation to any female partners. It was a fine evening, as the blog entry for that outing testifies, with appearances from Mumbai Me A Pony, Naanbread Mouskouri, Tina Turmeric, Chaka Naan, Birhiani and my very own beautiful assistant, Vag Mahal. The female company was a welcome spicy addition to our manly curry club. But another couple of appearances made the evening a special one. First there was the presence of the self-confessed ghost of TATTGOC, Mahkni Knife, plus a delightful debut from curry cub Baby Bhuna. Now, having ticked all these boxes would have been enough to mark this as a legendary evening in TATTGOC history but those pesky tramps, being the masters of detail had one final trick up their sleeve – an eleventh hour arrival of the scottish pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang. A fine evening indeed.
Thank you Trampy and The Tramp. It has been an honour to be part of your mighty celebration of curry for the past five years.
Chasni Hawkes
When I think of Curry Club, the first thing that pops into my head isn't the spectacular array of establishments that have been visited, nor the Biblical quantities of spicy grub that have been consumed ...
It's the vibe, that buzz of excitement and anticipation, cultivated by the Tramps and emitted by each Curry Clubber as they join up of with the squad. Each of them thinking that tonight's going to be a good night. Oh yes, and the glance from Trampy to the Tramp and back again as they wrangle the naan/rice equation from the ether ... like Aristotle squaring up to Archimedes on the sands of Millport.
For it is a brotherhood. A shady network of mainly bearded men, meaty tendrils extending across the globe. Once, as we headed to the Neelim in Scotstoun, a bemused bam was heard to ask “Are youse all brothers, aye?” Trampy stepped up to the open goal. “Yes. Yes we are.”
Admittedly, the entry criteria are strict and mysterious. Rumours abound that beardedness, short-sightedness and a certain thickness of middle are required. These are nonsense; though admittedly it would be hard to construct an entertaining Who’s Who board out of the members. But with TATTGOC, once you’re in, you’re in.
The geniality of the group means we’re extended a welcome even in the less immediately friendly corners of the city. A pre-curry visit to a pub in Tradeston filled with mad uncles playing fuming games of dominoes might have felt like a wrong turn without the aura of harmless cheeriness we projected. Instead, a few eyebrows were raised at our ambient hairiness and we were granted safe passage.
And as the popularity and ken of TATTGOC has grown, so the reception of restauranteurs has shifted from bemusement to – in some cases – near adulation. Trampy and the Tramp have deservedly established themselves as minor celebs in the admittedly niche world of curry. More importantly than that, they’ve created a brother-(and, sometimes, sister-)hood of which I’m proud to be a part, and memories that keep me eagerly awaiting my next trip back to the home of curry.
Bobo Balti
As far back as I can remember I always wanted to eat curry.
I’d long heard of the famous "Curry Club", thanks to friends The Bulldosa and The Gheezer’s tales of spicy lamb chops and egg pakora, and one day hoped for an invite to sample one of these affairs for myself.
After a late night visit to watch Tron: Legacy in 3D at the IMAX, and running into Trampy, I was, not long after, invited to come along. My first ever TATTGOC outing was to the Punjabi on Paisley Road West. This was less than three weeks before my lovely assistant Debbie McGhee gave birth to our first curry cub. A period that meant I wasn’t back on duty for nearly six months.
Since then though, I’ve had a dozen outings to some of the strangest and greatest curryhouses in Glasgow. All of which have been an absolute pleasure. I even got to attend this year’s Scottish Curry Awards. A fantastic event, where before we even sat down, we had been given an eye test and gifted a device to check the tread on our car tyres.
There are so many aspects of Curry Club I could talk about – the ritual of selecting your nickname, The Tramps’ Christmas party gifts, the rice/naan equation are just a few. Anyway, one final thing to say is that food is, of course, a big part of the Curry Club, but the company at the table is far bigger. As always, I can’t wait for the next one. Here’s to the next five years ...
SOME OTHER RECENT TATTGOC POSTS
Five Years Of TATTGOC: We Asked Our Curryspondents To Wire In
Tastin' With The Vamps: The Mystery Of The Haunted Madras Lattice Curry Capital 2013 Result: The TATTGOC Breakdown
Our Keep Calm And Curry On Podcast: Episode 13 – Temple Of Bhuna
It's National Curry Week! And You Could Also Win A Holiday!
Five Years Of TATTGOC: We Asked Our Curryspondents To Wire In
.
This month, Trampy and the Tramp's Glasgow of Curry celebrates five years of continuous spicy operation, incorporating almost 50 legendary outings and countless weekly updates. A lot has happened since that first fateful visit to the Indian Orchard in Partick, and we've got a series of typically self-congratulatory posts lined up for November before a very special Curry Club outing to mark the occasion. First up, the Tramps wanted to ask their highly dedicated team of Foreign Curryspondents to offer up their thoughts and opinions on five years of TATTGOC. What must it be like to sort of be part of the brotherhood, but rarely able to enjoy the actual outings (like Schrödinger's Chaat)? Their views might surprise and arouse you ...
Enjoy, and we'll be back next Thursday with more TATTGOC 2008-2013 celebrations.
Tikka Mabaws
Notable Curryspondence: That vindaloo in La Paz
I’m surely not the only Foreign Curryspondent who believed the emotional fallout from his departure from Glasgow was a key driving force in the foundation of TATTGOC. “Look at them! See how they struggle without me!” is more or less what I thought in late 2008 as I paraded myself around in Dubai during the early days of my new life in the sun.
I had left the grey drudgery of Glasgow behind; where once I had staggered home with tikka-tinged lips, now I nodded appreciatively when someone handed me another oyster at a cocktail party. This is living, I kept telling myself as I urgently sought evidence of the rightness of my decision to leave Scotland behind. Mercifully, this abominable wanker attitude didn’t last long.
Within a few months, I no longer regarded TATTGOC with pity. Looking at the unfocused pictures of grinning, usually bearded faces in the gloom of curry houses around Glasgow, the whole thing didn’t seem dumb. In fact, if I looked close enough and held on tight through Trampy’s rampant verbosity, it seemed like people were having a great time. Better, even, than when I was on the scene.
That was around four years ago, and while I have seen and done some fairly extraordinary things in that time, I cannot suppress growing feelings of envy. No matter how far I travel or how high I climb, no matter who I meet or where I eat, there is always a lingering sense somewhere in the back of my bulbous cranium that on certain nights in Glasgow, I’m badly missing out.
If anything, my work as a Foreign Curryspondent has been a fairly desperate attempt to stay in touch with something that, for now, remains infuriatingly out of reach. TATTGOC has become the holographic Al to my Dr Sam Beckett – a link to another world and the monthly outings leave me hoping each time that my next leap will be the leap home.
Lord of the Dhansak
Notable Curryspondence: The stars align in Bath (2009)
Since taking up the post of foreign curryspondent for the Tramps' esteemed blog, oh, more years ago than I care to count, my reviewing career has been full of memorable incidents. In Goa, there was the battle with the street performer's monkey over who would get to eay my garlic naan: I won in the end, of course, but the wee blighter was annoyingly tenacious. There was the flirtatious waitress in Bangkok who turned out better equipped than I expected: I was livid at the time, but now I can look back on it and laugh, or at least force a sort of grimace.
And a few occasions when, finding myself a tad short of the local currency to cover a ludicrously inflated bill, I opted to fling the readies at a passing tuk-tuk or taxi driver to make a quick getaway: a tactic that only failed me that time the cabbie turned out to be the chef's cousin. Don't waste your time searching the curryspondence archives for these stories, though, as all too often my prose has proved too spicy for the Tramps' tastes and my words have ended up on the editor's spike. (Not entirely true. The only paperwork that Dhansak filed from Goa or Bankgkok were expenses claims, not review copy. And he has always claimed to have paid his restaurant bills in full. – The Tramps)If you run into me in some tatty hotel bar at some point, I'll be happy to tell you the anecdotes in full, plus some others – even more hair-raising – that won't see print until my memoirs are published. Still, they're good lads on the whole, although one could wish that they were less tardy in honouring expense claims. (We have explained to Dhansak on more than one occasion that TATTGOC never has and never will pay expenses. – The Tramps) They've gathered a fine community of curry enthusiasts, at home and around the world.
And although the camaraderie of the Glasgow outings sounds braw, I wouldn't swap it for the exciting life of the intrepid curryspondent, ever ready to dive into some misbegotten attempt at a curryhouse in a far-flung city, putting my tastebuds (and backside) on the line to bring you the truth about the curry experience around the globe. Or, er, in Bath. For giving me the chance to participate in this noble endeavour, TATTGOC, I salute you.
(PS I did ask my reviewing partner the Thali Ho if she wanted to add any reminiscences of her own, but after reading my contribution she just rolled her eyes and shook her head.)
Martin Jalfrezi
Notable Curryspondence: Brickin' it in NYC (2010)
When I lived in Glasgow, in the last days of the 20th century, I didn’t really think of it as a great curry city, even though I was sharing a flat with Trampy at the time. This was long before he had been crowned a Curry Lover of the Year, and for the most part, we stuck to the same old reliables on Gibson Street and in the city centre. As long as it was cheap, spicy and bring your own, that was fine by us.
If someone had asked me where to get a great curry in Britain, I would have said Bradford or Birmingham, in complete ignorance. TATTGOC has been a revelation and a reason to kick myself for missing out. It’s made me angry that most curryhouses in New York are so bland, greasy and uninspiring. On a couple of occasions, it’s made me seek out something better here. In fact, it’s making me want to eat a Lamb Madras right now.
As a foreign curryspondent, my personal holy grail is to eat at an Indian restaurant in Rio de Janeiro. For the time being, at least, there isn’t one. I’ve been visiting regularly for the last eight years and for one reason or another have never managed to get to the city’s one curryhouse, an establishment that’s been open in Botafogo since the 1980s, put off by the bad reviews and astronomical prices (in this, it’s not unusual – eating out anywhere in Rio is painfully expensive). When I finally resolved to go this April, to write about it for the blog, I discovered it had closed down.
Congratulations to the Tramps on five years of ceaseless exploration. When Glasgow finally reclaims the title of Curry Capital in 2014, I will raise a Kingfisher, wherever I am.
Makhni Knife
Notable Curryspondence: The first ever, from Kanazawa, Japan (2009)
In the years since, I have become the ghost at every feast, watching from a great distance as the regular membership eats its way through curryhouses old and new in the city that I love. On occasion, I am permitted to write dispatches from generally inferior Indian restaurants in various remote global outposts, though this only tends to emphasise my isolation. And on those rare occasions when I return home, I find my former brothers a little aloof, and always ready to remind me that I eat only by their leave.The four official TATTGOC meals that I have attended were each a live demonstration of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle – if the very act of observing something somehow changes it, then how am I to know that Curry Club is not a profoundly different affair whenever I am not present? How can I be sure that the food is not hotter, the hooting more ribald, the whole experience somehow more “authentic” when I am not a guest? These are the thoughts that trouble me even while I break naan bread with those pricks.
I am forced to concede, however, that Curry Club has proved more enduring and inspiring than anyone would have expected – a polestar over distant Glasgow. Once a month, on the appointed Thursday night, I turn from wherever I’m standing to face that personal Mecca and raise two fingers in tribute to Trampy and The Tramp. Then I turn and walk on, as the wind dries my tears and wipes away my footprints.
SOME OTHER LEGENDARY FOREIGN CURRYSPONDENCE
Tastin' With The Vamps: The Mystery Of The Haunted Madras Lattice
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It's Halloween! OooooOOOOoooOOOoooh! And since it's pretty rare that Halloween falls on a Thursday, the traditional day when the TATTGOC blog updates, the Tramps thought they'd do something suitably creeptastic. There are few things more special than a short-term special promotional item from Greggs, and in the run-up to winter's most spine-chilling holiday, the uber-popular pasty-pusher has a range of spooktacular products to tempt passing trade, as well as a (frankly bewildering) soc-med campaign called Invasion of the Zombie Bakers. After looking at the dedicated website for almost a quarter of an hour, the Tramps still didn't have a clue what's happening, although noted there were some cool zombie pics from Scotland.
Then they turned their attention to Tastin' With The Tramps, a TATTGOC format that had been rather neglected in recent months. The Tramp had noticed that Greggs was doing a special Chicken Madras Lattice throughout October, which seemed like a suitably scary idea, since a lot of people remain too intimidated to order madras from the menu when visiting a curryhouse. Trampy picked one of the golden lattices for the official tasting, and judging by the first official photograph, it looked pretty good.
But just as the Tramps were poised to take their first bite, dictaphone at the ready to record their first impressions, the temperature seemed to drop in Trampy's kitchen. The doughty bloggers suppressed an involuntary shiver. It felt like there was another presence in the room, too subtle too perceive directly but hovering at the edges of their vision. There was a sudden CRASH from the window, and the Tramps spun around in unison to confront the threat. A false alarm. Merely a precarious stack of Bluetones promotional CDs that had tumbled to the floor, like a jangle-pop mudslide. Our burly heroes slowly released a breath they didn't even realise they were holding. But when they turned back to the lattice, something uncanny had happened – it had been bisected, and a quarter was missing.
Of course, both Trampy and the Tramp's first instinct was to assume the other had scoffed the first morsel during all the business with the scattered CDs. Trampy raised his most accusing eyebrow and the Tramp unconsciously bunched his fingers into fists, ready to take whatever action was required to secure the next bite. Then: a loud thump from the ceiling above, followed by a peal of high-pitched mocking laughter. Trampy's furrowed brow resolved itself. "It's cool," he said. "It's the students upstairs. One of them is always dropping their Wii Fit board." Relieved, they returned to the task at hand. Oh no!
Another full half of the lattice had inexplicably vanished, and while a certain amount of pungent spicy fumes had escaped from the pastry casing, neither of the Tramps had actually had an opportunity to try the madras filling, and now there was barely a quarter left. The right thing to do, obviously, would be to half the remaining lattice and extrapolate their tasting impressions from that tiny morsel. Instead, both Tramps shot out their favoured hand to secure the prize. After a few seconds of struggle they reached a physical detente, a creditable stalemate of brute strength – in silent agreement, they withdrew their hands, only to discover ... the final piece of lattice had dematerialised too.
"There must be some rational explanation," said Trampy.
"I think it's pretty clear that lattice was haunted," said the Tramp.
"We didn't even get to taste it, though," said Trampy. "What will we put on the blog?"
"Dude," said the Tramp. "You'll think of something. It's Halloween. Just make it diabolical."
SOME OTHER RECENT TATTGOC POSTS
Curry Capital 2013 Result: The TATTGOC Breakdown Our Keep Calm And Curry On Podcast: Episode 13 – Temple Of Bhuna
It's National Curry Week! And You Could Also Win A Holiday!
From Our Foreign Curryspondent ... Dateline: Brooklyn!
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(The TATTGOC brotherhood extends around the globe, and we welcome reports of curry expeditions beyond Glasgow – in this bulletin, our man in NYC Martin Jalfrezi files a spicy dispatch from one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world ...)
MashAllah Sweets and Restaurant, Brooklyn
In September, the authors of a book about the New York Police Department’s Demographics Unit leaked one of their key primary sources to the press to gin up publicity. The “Sports Venue Report” listed “South Asian Sports Locations” and “Arab Sports Locations” all over the five boroughs, and helpfully provided a map of the best places to watch cricket, football and Muslims watching cricket and football.
This was immediately denounced as racial profiling and an outrageous assault on civil liberties because, y’know, it is, but it did also occur to me that the NYPD had unwittingly compiled the very curry guide that the city was sorely lacking. I had pretty much given up on curry, partly because my wife, the Girl from Ipan-Keema, is averse to spicy food, and partly because the "Indian" restaurants in my neighbourhood are so mediocre.
There are apparently fantastic curry houses in the Bangladeshi quarter of Jackson Heights, in Queens, but that’s a three-hour round trip. The offerings on Murray "Curry" Hill in Manhattan are variable and expensive. The NYPD’s dossier promised better. I’d cycled and run along the Pakistani stretch of Coney Island Avenue a few times without ever thinking to stop and investigate the food, which with hindsight seems stupid. After doing a bit of research on Yelp – the cops make no mention of whether the food is any good – we (myself, Chapati Smith and Vindaloo Reed) picked a block with three restaurants and resolved to eat at whichever looked best.
Punjab Restaurant resembled a 1980s airport lounge, Shandar Sweet and Restaurant a Pakistani Wendy’s. In the end, we went for Mashallah Sweets and Restaurant, which also had a neon-lit, fast food vibe, but somehow appeared a little more welcoming. Chapati Smith and Vindaloo Reed are both born fast bowlers, a whippy six-foot plus, and as English as gooseberry jam. Your correspondent Martin Jalfrezi, his Scottish ancestry notwithstanding, hails from Oxford. We may as well have been aliens.
When Vindaloo Reed wondered aloud whether we should order some Aloo Gobi, the man behind the counter gave us a shy smile, his eyes like saucers. How do they know? The deal was canteen. We asked for Chicken Jalfrezi, which wasn’t on. “Everyone likes Butter Chicken,” he said. We ordered Fish Masala, Lamb “Champ Curry” and Aloo Gobi, and embarrassed ourselves by not knowing the difference between bhaji and pakora. Two rice, two perfect fluffy naans.
The Mashallah was clearly a no booze establishment, so we ordered a Coke, a Pepsi and a glass of water, resolving to have a couple after to make up for it. Our waiter brought the first dishes. “I think I know where you are from,” he told us. A beat. “Russia.” We explained that, no, we are English, dropped into the magic curry at birth. “That colour? English?” He wasn’t convinced. I asked if it was a Pakistani restaurant. “Yes,” he said, “and the food is good because we are all Muslims.” I made a mental note to report him to the police.
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| Some of the sweets from MashAllah, according to the excellent Ditmas Park Corner blog |
It was the best curry I’ve had in New York. All three main dishes were spicy, but not over the top, with extra whole chillies for the hardcore. The fish masala, in particular, was absolutely delicious, probably the best fish curry I’ve ever had. At the cash register, they asked for $31. For all of it. We went to a bar that is a flower shop by day – this is Brooklyn – and spent almost as much on two gin and tonics and a pint of bitter. I’m already planning to cycle back with a rucksack and some Tupperware. Next time I may even buy some of their sweets.
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| Heavy petal: that flower shop-stroke-speakeasy nearby ... |
A few days after filing this, I had a good reason to return to the neighbourhood and stop in at Mashallah. I explained that my wife was of the pasanda persuasion and asked if any of the dishes could be considered mild. "All the meat dishes are spicy," the man told me. "The vegetables, not spicy." I bought a large meal to take home: lamb and chicken curries, mixed vegetable curry, daal and some pakora.
The Girl From Ipan-Keema took one bite of the pakora, dipped in raita, and immediately started gesturing as if her throat was on fire. She tried the daal and the vegetable curry and began to sweat. Both were, even for me, seriously spicy. So she warmed up yesterday's lasagne and I looked forward to a whole week of eating curry for lunch. Alright!
SOME PREVIOUS FOREIGN CURRYSPONDENCE
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