We all know that the majority of Indian curry houses on our high streets are run by Bangladeshis, who opened restaurants here in substantial numbers from the 1950s onwards. And we should recognise by now that they know our palates rather better than we do. After all, many of our favourite dishes are adaptations or inventions on their part: madras, vindaloo and the infamously inauthentic nation's number one, chicken tikka masala. But what is curry like in the real home of most British curry? I went to find out.
The capital, Dhaka, is breathtaking. Literally. The air has signature notes of petrol, diesel and other hydrocarbons, and it clutches the throat with steely fingers. The pollution would be even more severe were it not for hundreds of thousands of pedal-driven rickshaws whirring about the streets like enormous metal cicadas. Hidden away within the urban sprawl are the narrow lanes of the Old Town, containing a Hindu artisans' quarter where craftsmen sculpt statues of deities from mud and straw. Nearby, the Ahsan Manzil, or Pink Palace, provides views over the Buriganga River, a broad band of coffee-coloured water lined by decaying ghats which are swamped by Biblical masses of humanity.
But refuge from the congestion is readily available, and visitors tend to quit the capital swiftly — on The Rocket, one of the large paddle steamers that continually ply the country's enormous estuaries between paddies of primary green, betel nut palms and coconut trees. And The Rocket's dining room, furbished with gleaming hardwood and swathes of spotless linen, was my entrée into the world of curry beyond the biryanis, bhunas, dopazias and other staples the Bangladeshis have introduced us to.
Strange fruit
Khichuri is a combination of rice and musur dal. The local chinigura rice — short grain, nutty and fluffy — was grounded by the lentils' earthiness and given an incendiary underpinning by green and dried red chillis. Curried papaya was more delicate - although curried fruit seemed, of itself, a novel concept. Prior to ripening, papaya has a vegetable texture and its tenderness was teased out with onion and turmeric. The boiled olive pickle was odd indeed. The olives' stark tartness was given the barest tempering by other ingredients including black cumin — a spice tasting like a hybrid of onion and fennel seed. And fish chutney was positively alien. It was nothing like the familiar sweet relishes back home, instead resembling unplugged gefilte fish: a cake of boiled taki (a fresh water fish with granular white flesh), mashed with chili, raw onion and garlic.
Back on land I headed up to Sylhet in the north-east, the region from which the majority of the UK's Bangladeshi curry house owners and workers hail. In Sylhet City, I met up with Sheikh Harun, proprietor of curry houses in two of my favourite Essex towns: Burnham-on-Crouch and Shoeburyness. Here in Sylhet the menu at his Hotel Polash and its Swapnil Restaurant, offered fish kupta curry, another fish chutney notable for outlandish presentation — it comes inside the fish's skin. But the finest dish I ate in Sylhet was at the modest Jallalabad Restaurant, where I sampled white pumpkin curry, scooping up sweet squash with wedges of bannock-like loaves of bread, all for less than 70p.
Fish of fire
Back in Dhaka, I searched for an upmarket 'deshi restaurant. The difficulty is that like us, wealthy Bangladeshis favour foreign food. Top-end establishments offer Thai, Italian, Indian and above all Chinese food. So for advice, I turned to Tommy Miah, the curry king and Bangladesh's polite equivalent of Gordon Ramsey. His business interests encompass a curry house in Leith, Edinburgh, as well as Heritage, his restaurant in Dhaka. Heritage is at the upper end of Bangladesh's food chain but by British standards prices remain extremely modest – three courses come in at around £10 a head. The restaurant's décor, by contast, is decidedly immodest. "Heritage's design is loosely based on a Mughal palace," said Tommy. Inevitably he, too, comes from Sylhet, and Sylhetis are serious about the Mughal Empire, regarding the era as the start of their rise as entrepreneurs. Tommy has a couple of deer wandering Heritage's garden and waiters in Mughal military headdresses. More importantly for me, his menu includes interpretations of 'deshi favourites.
Which brings me to the fundamental difference between curry in Bangladesh and here: fish. There is a huge variety available all over the country but the national favourite is hilsa, to which Tommy treated me. Hilsa is another curiosity, somewhere between cod and mackerel. It is fantastically bony, making filleting a surgical operation. The preferred recipe involves a sauce containing mustard seed and chilli, which act as the twin barrels of a gastronomic shotgun, blasting the hilsa's dun flesh through your innards.
As I clambered on to my homeward flight nursing scorched intestines, I pondered the prospects of Bangladeshis sharing more of their dishes with us over here. Don't hold your breath. They are well aware we might struggle to acquire some of their more distinctive tastes, and so I can confidently predict that boiled olive pickle and hilsa won't feature on Brick Lane menus any time soon.
Getting there
Peter Carty travelled to Bangladesh courtesy of Undiscovered Destinations; undiscovered-destinations.com; +44 (0)191 206 4038.
Swapnil Restaurant, Hotel Polash, Airport Road, Amborkhana, Sylhet; + 88 0 821 71 8811.
Jallalabad Hotel and Restaurant, Zinda Bazar Road, Sylhet, (no phone).
Heritage Restaurant, Road 109, House 10, Gulshan 2, Dhaka; heritagerestaurant.info; + 880 2 8829359
