• Birmingham’s Balti Triangle Beckons Curry Lovers

    Date: 2010.01.27 | Category: Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,

    Birmingham is the home of the Balti curry, and nowhere dishes them up like the Balti Triangle.

    What dish is England’s all-time favorite? Is it fish and chips or shepherd’s pie?Ask the average person in the street and it’s quite likely they’ll tell you that the wonderful curry is the country’s favorite dish.

    The variety of curry dishes is enough to send a gourmand into flavour heaven, but in Birmingham one dish stands head and shoulders above the rest. Welcome to the home of the mighty Balti: Birmingham’s Balti Triangle. The Balti Triangle consists of about 50 restaurants clustered around the Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath and Moseley areas of South Birmingham.The Balti is king here, and the reasons are clear.

    The word balti translates as “bucket”, but it’s actually a traditional flat-bottomed wok that is usually used to both cook and serve this delicious treat. All of the balti restaurants in and around the Triangle guard their recipes very closely, but the spices that are used typically are things like coriander, cloves, cumin, cardamom and ginger.A must-have when visiting Birmingham for a balti is one of the giant naans the Triangle is known for.Sharing is encouraged, as they’re sometimes as big as the table! It’s no wonder that the Balti Triangle was ranked Number 15 of the Top 25 Travel Experiences in Britain in the Rough Guide’s “25s” Series.

    It’s believed that the balti originally came to Birmingham in the mid-1970’s and was introduced by the city’s large Pakistani and Kashmiri communities. It quickly became a local favourite, and then spread to surrounding regions and the rest of the nation. In fact, the balti curry is such an established part of Birmingham’s culture that balti bowls are now manufactured in the city.

    Not only does the Balti Triangle offer a veritable smorgasbord of taste sensations, it also is the heart of a local economy that welcomes thousands of visitors each year, making it a multi-million pound industry.In addition, about 2000 kilograms of onions and 300 kilograms of chicken breast are used by a typical balti house in a week, which keeps many local suppliers in business.

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