Nowadays every curry house seems to have its own selection of house specialities and chef's signature dishes. The other day I had a Lamb Jaflongi. Is there some remote region of the subcontinent called Jaflong or do they just make these names up?
In case you're wondering, it wasn't bad – medium hot with a rich sauce in which I thought I detected a faint hint of mint, and what I took to be the last piece of meat turned out to be a chunk of pickled lemon peel.
While I'm on the subject – when did the practice of serving popadoms and chutneys as an appetiser become commonplace? When I first patronised Indian restaurants in the late 60s/early 70s, both items were taken as accompaniments to one's curry which, as I understand it, is what they were originally intended for. But sometime around the 90s it became the norm to order a stack of pupadums* and spoon little dollops of mango chutney and lime pickle on them. Why?
* Is there a "correct" spelling of this word? It seems that any combination of the vowels a, o and u interpolated between the consonants p, p, d and m is acceptable.
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