Brit Curry Fixation

Brief article in MSNBC about Asha Bhosle’s latest venture – an upscale Desi restaurant in the UK

When British pubs shut their doors just after 11 p.m. Burch, and thousands like him, will complete a typical night out by staggering up the road to wash down all that beer with a hybrid Anglo-Indian mix of foods that most Britons call “curry”. “There is only one place to head to after the pubs have shut and that’s for a curry,” said Burch. “The most important thing is to have eight pints before you go, then the hotter the curry the better. It’s an English tradition.” … Bhosle, who already has restaurants in Kuwait and Dubai, will provide her name, the decor, music and a rich menu of authentic northwest Indian cuisine to tempt patrons away from the Bengali-inspired dishes that dominate British curry houses. The two entrepreneurs are also hoping the popularity of the 71-year-old singer, who was the muse for the 1997 hit pop song “Brimful of Asha” will be a lure for emigre Indians. … Britain’s Food Standards Agency said in its 2003 “Curry Factfile” that 2.5 million consumers tuck into “an Indian” every week and that the industy as a whole is worth some 3.2 billion pounds ($5.96 billion). Some 23 million portions of chicken tikka masala are eaten each year and it is estimated there are more Indian restaurants in London than in Delhi and Bombay.

8 Pints of beer, eh?

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13 thoughts on “Brit Curry Fixation

  1. abhi,

    Speaking of cornershop did you notice the Target commercials use some doctored version of Cornershop and Fox football used a cornershop song for one of their commercials. Can’t remember the names right now..

  2. MD – I noticed it as well! They were using the Fatboy Slim Remix of Brimful of Asha. It’s one of my fav remixes of alltime – totally recommended!

  3. I beleive that song is called “Good Shit” off their “When I was Born for the Seventh Time” disc. (I, dorkily enough, own it. Ahhhh high school.”

  4. cornershop is the shit…my roomie told me that their song “Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform” was recently heard on some stateside TV show…i forget which

  5. Y’all know I had to post something on here in response to all this Cornershop chatter!

    a) Echo Vinod’s sentiments about the Fatboy Slim remix (big surprise there).

    b) Unclear if Cornershop are still officially “around”- they released a single in July ’04 (see http://www.cornershop.com to listen to it).

    c) Priya, dorkily enough, I have a screen name based on it!

  6. Speaking of militant-group-sympathizing singers, when i first heard Tjinder Singh sing “brimful of asha on a 45”, I thought he was referring to the assasination of Indira Gandhi. You know..hope (asha) riding on a gun (45). That’s before i found out that the Asha referred to was Asha Bhosle.

  7. You know..hope (asha) riding on a gun (45).
    I wonder what caliber you thought a 33 1/3 was 😉

    a .333 perhaps ? hey i didn’t say i know anything about guns…

  8. Hey Ashvin

    I guess your mistake taught you a lesson: the redundancy and shallowness of your stereotypes

    😉