SO this week I wrote a review of The Great Wall in Chinatown and the Tale of The Two Menus - click here.
I wrote: 'One of the menus is for 'us', the Westerners and the rest, who are given what we're supposed to like, and the other menu is for 'them', the folk of Chinese origin'.
All the best food - and it was delicious - was on the 'them' menu.
The Chinese community is not alone in this policy
Most foodies in Manchester avoid Rusholme with it's generic menus, give us the 'apna' choice and we'll be back
People, on our rant section, wrote in to say this happens in Asian (i.e. Indian and Pakistani) restaurants as well.
The trick is to ask for the food 'apna style' - 'our style'. It appears that white faces won't get 'apna' automatically. The choice is taken away.
We tested this in a city centre takeaway sending in a Pakistani-background gent who asked for the same dish 'apna' and not apna.
We got karahi dishes. One was a sloppy mess of heavily liquid lamb the other was dryer, spicer, better flavoured, it had definition and it had edge.
Just not ap'ning
Guess which was 'apna'?
You've got it - the dishes shown at the top of this page.
There was also a chicken 'apna' dish which was restaurant standard and again a meaty, spicy, thing without the shocking slop of the generally available offer.
As this was a takeaway, the difference in approach took place in front of the other punters. The 'apna' dish was taken out of the curry pot and re-prepared at which stage all the extra herbs were added.
Extraordinary.
Apparently of Manchester restaurants Zouk is one of the few that serve all their food 'apna'.
Most of the rest, even the big names in Asian Manchester cuisine, are another Tale of Two Menus.
I find this patronising.
As I put on the Great Wall review: 'I feel insulted that I don't have the opportunity to try this food as standard. If restaurants are afraid that they may put off the average British diner then all it takes is a simple insert in the 'Westerner' menu. Their concerns are twenty years out of date. Britain and its tastebuds have generally moved on, adapted, become more adventurous.'
As with Chinatown, as with the Indian Subcontinent's representatives here. Most foodies in Manchester avoid Rusholme with it's generic menus, so give us the 'apna' choice and we'll be back.
It makes financial sense too. After all who would ever advertise their restaurant as providing, 'inauthentic, just as mother never used to cook, totally 65% Indian food'? Now turn that sentiment around, starting with 'authentic'.
I feel that without the 'apna' choice being offered me I've wasted a lot of money in Asian restaurants over the years. I feel conned, whether or not this came about because the chefs were concerned for my cute delicate tastebuds.
Maybe as Manchester's most serious magazine for food and drink we should put up a marquee in Albert Square and another in the car park in Chinatown.
The first would be filled with counters from Asian restaurants, the second with those from Chinatown representatives. Both would serve the food they serve their own community.
There'd be queues round the block.
