When is a curry not a curry?

Answer:  When it’s a Kebab!

What on earth am I on about?  Let me tell you.

Last night we took some friends out for a curry (readers of previous posts may sense a theme here).  The curry house we use is the only one in the vicinity and whilst it’s popular, it is never packed.  Bearing this in mind, we decided we didn’t need to book.  Silly us!  We got there and the place was heaving and we were told we’d have to wait at least an hour for a table.  Considering our friends had their young son with them, waiting an hour wasn’t really ideal.  So we opted for take away. Monday to Wednesday the restaurants offers a “buffet” menu of a starter, main, rice or nan and a pudding for €10 each, take away is an extra €0.95.  Well, at least according to the menu it is.  According to the not so friendly owner takeaway on the buffet menu wasn’t available; we’d have to choose from the normal menu and pay full price.   Strange since it clearly stated that the buffet menu was available for take away for a surcharge of €0.95.  When we questioned it, the chap got really shirty, told us he makes the menu and he can decide what we can have.  Charming.  He offered us the full menu (with much higher prices) or told us to get lost.  Well.  Just lovely.  We decided to get lost.

So there we are, in town with a hungry 4 year old in tow and nowhere to eat.  We went over to a local bar to weigh up our options.  On the counter are leaflets advertising all sorts of local shops and eateries.  One of the leaflets is from a turkish kebab house.  Instantly both men started drooling and doing Homer Simpson impressions.  Its seemed we were off to the kebab shop instead.  The problem of course is that despite having the address for the restaurant, none of us knew where it was.

We got in the car and as we debated which direction we should head in, a Guardia Civil 4×4 drives past.  (Yes that’s the branch of the Police you hear horror stories about).  Our friend leaped out of the car and flagged them down – the rest of us looked the other way and try to pretend that the English bloke asking for directions to a kebab shop isn’t really with us and we have no idea who he is.  Still, they managed to point is in the vague direction of the shop and sent us on our merry way.

A few wrong turns later and we finally found our oasis, down a side street next to the Geriatric Hospital.  Very salubrious surroundings.   Anyway, at this point I was so hungry I’d have probably agreed to eating a scabby dog, so we all head into the kebab shop.  It was light, bright, clean and obviously reasonably new.  We could even eat in if we wanted to.  So we ordered our 3 chicken and one doner kebab meals – which come with chips and a drink for something like €5 and settled ourselves at a table.

When the food arrived it was presented on proper plates (in England you’re lucky if you get a sweaty polystyrene box) and we even had real glasses for our cans of coke – which the boys quickly swapped for beer.  We even got a free plate of chicken for the hungry 4 year old!  And the food?  Well it was yummy!  I opted for the chicken since donner is frequently described as “meat,” not beef or chicken or whatever and I don’t like the thought that I may be eating donkey or something equally odd.  My husband had it though and said it was really tasty – so much so that he ordered another one to take home for lunch today.

So there you have it.  One door closes and a door to a kebab shop opens.  That my friends, is when a curry is not a curry!