During our second week in the UK I saw on the news that the World
Curry Festival was being hosted the following weekend in a city called
Leeds. Both Glenn and I love Indian food and for the rest of the
week we eagerly anticipated the food we would be eating at the
festival. We even convinced some of our friends to come with us. I mean, how could they say no? This wasn’t the city curry festival, or national even. This is the WORLD
curry festival and we’re lucky enough to be within driving distance!
Now, some people travel because they want to see the sights. Me? I’d rather
meander through the streets and eat. And eat. And eat. So when festival day rolls around we gleefully hop into our tiny little car and drive two and a half hours north to Leeds, daydreaming the whole way about all the Indian food we’re going to eat. Our new friends like talking about food almost as much as we do.
Finally, the big moment arrives. We drive into Leeds and it’s raining.
No, POURING. And we only brought one little umbrella (amateurs). It’s
alright though, cause we’re going to the world curry festival, and
they planned ahead by holding it under some tents. We pay what would
be $10 American, walk into the tents and see….not much. There are a
bunch of tables set up for people to eat at, maybe 30 booths, a spot
to watch some cooking classes, and some concessions. Refusing to be
discouraged, we fight the crowds and walk around a bit, high stepping
all the way because we’re practically walking through a small river-
you see, rain flows downhill and we were smack dab in the middle of
the currents. No biggie, wet feet won’t matter once we have satisfied
tummies. So we grab a table and the boys run off to buy us some food.
They come back with a hodgepodge of different types of
curries…funny, it doesn’t look like Indian. It doesn’t taste like
Indian either. In fact, it doesn’t taste like anything at all. It’s
bland and horrible. And then it dawns on us- this is not the World
Curry Festival, as in the best of the best. This is a festival for
curries from around the world. Oops.
At least we got to see a new city. And we got to know our new friends
a little better. And that night we finally got some madras and tikki
masala from a local indian restaurant by our hotel. Mission
accomplished.
One cultural aside:
The British people love Indian food. And by love, I really mean LOVE.
This year is the 200 anniversary of the first Indian restaurant
opening in the UK and Tikki Masala is considered one of the national
dishes. There are at least 2 Indian restaurants for any other kind and
they are the busiest restaurants that we’ve seen here. Even the
chicken salads, pizzas, and baked potatoes have some kind of curry
added to them. It’s really amazing to me.
yummy- No?
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