Currying Disfavour

My favourite Indian restaurant was a place just outside Buckhurst Hill Station called The Coriander. Note, however, that I say “was”. I learned recently that it had changed management so, when I went for my usual chicken jalfrezi the other night, I feared the worst. And you know what? The worst was exactly what I got.

The food is now FUCKING SHITE.

This is the trouble with curry houses. The standards can vary enormously, and from management to management. One thing I've noticed, though: whatever the quality of the Indian meal - vomit-inducing, indifferent, or delicious - the complimentary mint you get at the end with the bill is always of a consistently high standard. Indeed, where the meal has been especially bad, in many cases, the mint can actually go some way towards redeeming the evening. Which says to me that the quality-control aspects are all arse-about-tit.

Surely, therefore, it would be a much better idea to open a nationwide chain of mint restaurants. So, after having had a night on the town, people would roll down to their local mint house and order, say, an extra-strong Trebor Mint or a super-strength Tic-Tac, washed down with a few lagers. Then it wouldn't matter if you got a shit mint, because at the end, you could look forward to a free curry with your bill. And, naturally, that curry would be consistently delicious.

Another good thing about mint restaurants would be that if you overdid it on the mints, a puked-up Glacier Mint or Polo Mint wouldn't make a fraction of the mess on the pavement as a puked-up curry does. Indeed, its minty freshness might actually be welcomed in some of the scruffier areas of town, as it would probably counteract the smells of dog shit and piss that usually prevail.

Perhaps people would even start paying others to puke in their doorways, which has got to be better than the current situation where it’s usually done gratis and unbidden.