Desi Roti, Smethwick
You can tell a lot about the quality of food that a place serves by checking out its clientele. On my visit to Smethwick's Desi Roti this week - shamefully, the first in about two years - I was hugely reassured to see that every single one of the cavalcade of customers had the Indian sub continent in their genes, except for me.
You could just buy freshly made roti flatbreads - 25p each, or five for £1 - at Desi Roti, or even their own naans.
But you'd be a bit mad not to sample the food they're designed to mop up.
A chilled cabinet at the front of the shop shows off its ingredients of marinated and cooked chicken and lamb, chickpeas, lentils, spinach, pakora and samosas - and daily special dishes that change throughout the week.
Its menu also boasts familiar curryhouse specialties like dhansaks, dupiazas, Madrases, and rogan joshes. All come with a choice of rice, three roti or two naan breads.
You get to choose how you want your dishes cooked, so I opted for a chicken and spinach curry, fairly hotly spiced served with rotis, and a side dish cauliflower and potato curry, runner-up in the main-course stakes.
For my chilli-pepper phobic dining partner I ordered a chicken biriyani minus the very ingredients that make a decent curry sparkle, and a naan bread. I raced home with our feast.
The food was cooked to perfection, just as it had been on my last visit, and better still didn't contain too much oily slop - the single biggest turn-off of such takeaways.
My dining partner was similarly impressed with the fragrant fresh breads and the look of her dish, although she did trill something about her mouth being on fire after a few bites of her allegedly chilli-free biriyani.
All in all, our dishes set us back the bargain price of precisely £11, although it's cheapest meal deals - with chicken or lamb on the bone - ring in at just £2.99.
Clean and friendly as it is, there's no doubt that Desi Roti could do with a bit of an internal makeover. Maybe that'll happen when people start moving into the new housing estate on the nearby site of the former Cape Hill Brewery.
Jim Dunton
158 Cape Hill, Smethwick, Tel: 0121 558 8866
