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| 'Maybe you should have a J2O Inspector?' |
It was a short drive to Dewsbury train station, to sample
some of the beers in the Rail Ale Trail favourite, The West Riding. A
traditional 'boozer' there's plenty of ales to choose from here and even with
one side of the pub being the train station platform, it still manages to have
a beer garden - which is where we decided to pitch ourselves. Thankfully, when
we told Tony we'd be outside he didn’t end up on platform 1, catching a slow
train to Huddersfield. And it was here where
TTT impressed us all with his John Thaw knowledge, informing us that he was
only in his mid-30's in the Sweeney and mid 40's in Inspector Morse. Needless
to say, he must have had a hard paper round - cruising in his Jag with full
white hair and double bags under the eyes. Perhaps
he should have spoken to Lewis in softer tones to
prolong his youth - "LEWIS, LEWIS!"
This led to chat about other great crime programmes from
that era, which have now found a home on ITV4. Conclusions were drawn that Miss
Marple and Jessica Fletcher were just nosey old women, who had no authority whatsoever, but yet managed to prance around
police stations and interrogate whoever they liked. And in Midsomer County,
with a body count that would rival Rambo III, you could probably pick up a
beautiful 8 bedroom detached house with
swimming pool for a cool £2k - but you run the risk of being found face down in
said pool 5 days later. Murder mystery discussed, it was time to move on to the
curry house to solve the case of Dewsbury's curry offerings.
Mims Café & Grill Restaurant, Dewsbury.
It's obvious to see why Mims is described as a Café &
Grill, rather than a straight curry house, with it's smart wooden décor and
café bar - complete with shiny pristine machines any
Barista would be proud of. We're taken
upstairs to our seats, as host Dan brings forth the beers he had prepared
earlier due to Mims holding no alcohol license. Excellent BYOB action for a
debutant. With The Best Of The Gypsy Kings playing in the background, our order
was taken. Once the mixed grill sharing starters quantity was established, it
was on to the mains and for the second time this season we were asked our heat
preference - which is a lovely touch that I
hope more restaurants pick up. Some dishes ordered included Chicken Tikka
Keema, Chicken Tikka Garlic, Fish Balti (Madras strength!), Lamb Handi,
Chicken Tikka and King Prawn and an Asian Saal Massala. Some small debate was
had on sundries, but plenty was ordered and the waiters brought on the pickles
and poppadoms. The pickle tray was excellent it has to be said, the onion
relish in particular was that good, it was beautiful enough for Scott to enjoy
even without any poppadoms.
Waiting for the starters, Broady seized the opportunity to
try sell his two spare tickets for the UB40 concert in Leeds, and although he
was unsuccessful - it did bring forth a rendition of UB40 & Pato Banton's
catchy hit 'Baby Come Back', including an excellent reggae rap from Matty at
the table. Still jubilant from that, the starters arrived and the lovely mixed
grill was one of the best mixed starters we've had, which included Fish - a nice addition.
What wasn't nice though was the conduct of one half of the table, exploiting
the waiters uneven distribution and devouring multiple portions, while the
other half had to fight for what was available. The evidence was clear on host
Dan's plate - showing off two lamb chop bones compared to Scott's half a bone.
Poor form. It brought back memories ex-club member
Crazy Martin, an expert in devouring anyone and everyone's food, and so we began to regale tales of his 'crazy' antics.
One of which became a hot topic - the tale of when he was upstairs in his home,
having broadband fitted downstairs. He hears a strange voice ask 'can I use
your toilet?', he says 'yes' without looking who it was. A few minutes later,
he finds his toilet un-flushed. Ruined. An unholy number two staring him in the
face. He begins to voice his disgust with the broadband engineer who retorts by
saying it wasn't him, and that some hobo had
wandered in from the street needing the toilet. I was firmly in the camp that
no matter what is happening in your house, a strange voice requires inspection
and so a glance from the top of the stairs would have prevented such an act.
Everyone else disagreed, and like Martin, they would have assumed it was the
engineer. I accepted my minority status, and the
subsequent heckling - although Temple's faux pas of "999 times out
of a million, you wouldn't check!" diverted this
for a moment. Anyway, debate over Matty began to tell another story of
Crazy M, but was cut short by the waiter
bringing the mains. Lovely. Matty attempted to finish his story again, only for
the waiter to strike again, leaving poor Matty in a tiz. Third time was
definitely a charm for the group, bringing much laughter as the waiter carrying
sundries this time, struck Matty out and his
story was back in the dugout for another time.
With the food on the table, the waiters had forgotten our
cutlery but their pleasant manner and jovial attitude meant this didn’t really
matter as they were attentive throughout the night. This great service was
accompanied by some fabulous food too. The mains looked delicious and were met
with a great reception from all diners. The dishes seemed optimised to the
perfect heat to suit our individual tastes, well, all apart from Matty's Madras
strength request, and there was plenty of meat in a beautiful flavoursome sauce
of a lovely consistency. This curry even raised noises that it rivalled last
month's top notch effort at AM Kitchen. It was hard to argue against.
As soon as his dish was empty, TTT was up and off abruptly
again, fuelling rumours that he could be the masked vigilante known as Masala
Man, prowling the streets at night gassing criminals with his hot spicy bottom emissions. But the offer of a lift home put
a stop to his swift exit and so he was there to witness a curry club first, as
Matty was denied the option of bagging up (no diggity). Coming in at £170, with
an extra diner, the value is superb as you're getting high quality food here,
and maybe a sign that LS postcode or city centre dining comes at a price.
Could we have saved the best 'til last? It's a close call,
perhaps AM Kitchen has just pipped it by a nose hair in terms of quality - but
for value and quality, you'd have to say Mims. Either way - this is up
there with the best, no doubt, and our visit to Dewsbury was a real surprise and a worthy end to the season. Mims is certainly
worth a repeat visit, one I'm sure we would all look forward to.
As for Lister, we wish you well and here is something to
remember us by.
Until next season.
Cheers.
Danny
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| The Curry Club 2015 |
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