fell asleep infront of the tele now can't sleep so waste some time here catchng up on the world

logging off now......
....
..
.

Having had an insight into the buying habits of some Indian restaurants I tend to agree with you.
They can and do chuck some very suspect basic ingredients into their concoctions without the punters being any wiser.
Ppl. tell me Indian restaurants are all about the flavour of the sauces and curries.
I was always brought up to believe that good cooking was all about the quality of the basic ingredients.

As for curry sauces being used originally to disguise rancid meat, exactly the same used to be said of French cuisine by the English (in the days of Escoffier). The English (les rosbifs as we were known by the French) were suspicious of any "foreign" food especially garlic.

Personally I love a good curry (prawn jalfrezi is my favourite) and I think eating out in Britain is far better now that there are restaurants from so many different nationalities to choose from.

I miss a decent chinese and those lovely bbq spare ribs with lashings of sauce.Yum!!!!!

Is there anywhere that does a decent chinese like in the Uk.Id even be willing to travel to it,within reason of course.

Mulan in Alzira is excellent and there is a really good one in Cullera but I cannot remember its name. It is in the same road as Zodiac and Casa de Ramon, they also do Thai.

Rosemary

Sounds good. A good excuse for a drive out.Will be trying it.I bet they dont do ribs though and Im not opting for ancas de rana.

well I remember the large woks, gas fired range with huge flames, chinese food stir-fried - food to die for. The place I fell in love with Chinese food and the cooking method.
only problem that was the street market just outside the Sembawang gates of Singapore Naval Base in the 60's & 70's

closer to home I have had 2 good Chinese meals in Granada but can only remember where one is, excellent meal and wine at such a low cost I thought it had fallen off a lorry - and that was spoilt by the aircon making the place freezing. remember saying to OH that next time we must take a uk overcoat with us

Lynn, I am not knocking the curry per se (or anyone's right to want to eat it) but IMHO it should be used as a sauce on the side of the plate like mayo or pickles (IIRC came from the FE). But not used as the basis for the meal and the meat cooked for long periods in it.
Do you actually taste the prawns or is it just a soggy lump in the sauce and how do they compare to uncurried prawns in taste and texture ??

The problem is what is a good chinese restaurant, the chinese you eat in the far east bears very little relationship to the overcooked heavy sauced rubbish you buy in the UK. I was always skeptical when I was told that chinese is amongst the top three cuisines in the world until I went over there and I realised what delicious light food it really is. Came back to UK and sort of did not eat any there for a long time.
Must admit that I never ever eat strong curries because of the damage they do to ones taste buds. Saying that I used to smoke.

Graham

I knew someone in the Uk whose partner was in the last bejing olympics.She said she wasnt going with him this time as the time before had put her off because of the weird food offerings.Ive never been but have heard some scary stories about what goes in their meals.Maybe its not true.

Is this difference because it is what we have told them we want, what they think we want or what they see us eating elsewhere ?
Perhaps they are laughing up their sleeves at us for taking such delight in their offerings - which they probably wouldn't eat at home

My ideal is to go to the local representative of a nation's cooking for the cooking of that nation. IMHO it should be the same in HK, SP or Brussels.

Dimsum is difficult for even the Chinese to make correctly and they probably feel we wouldn't understand it if presented wafer thin - so we get thick stuff like Italian pasta versions.

I was very daring with my food, I even have eaten basic English sausages and beefburgers and I doubt that one could buy any worse rubbish in the world.
I was lucky enough to have a great Japanese interpreter who took his duties of looking after me very seriously in fact to the point of annoyance. Like most Japanese he thought of the Chinese, Koreans etc as being inferior and treated them as we treated the Indians during the days of the Raj. Strange to see such blatant racism as normality in this day and age, it took me back to my childhood.
The Koreans eat dog and my interpreter took great delight in front of the waiter by asking me what you call a Korean with a pet dog, should have known really, the answer, a vegetarian. Hopefully the waiter did not speak English. Had some wonderful Korean meals though.

Graham

But that's not just hearsay, that's a fact straight from people who were there.
The curries eaten in the UK also bare little or no resemblance to the real thing, try home made food from native Indian or Pakistanis and you will see what I mean.

which goes to prove they are laughing up their sleeves at us for accepting the crap they serve as "fast food".

countries like Spain, Italy, India, Pakistan who we know for "fast food" actually go to alot of trouble to make up a table of separate dishes with separate spices and feed in a more relaxed manner, with people sharing servings.

was it us or them that started this dump it all in the one pot then dump it all on one plate rubbish we currently get ??