THINK of Denby Dale and the word ‘pie’ will almost certainly spring to mind.
The village, current population 2,134, rose to national fame in 1788 when the villagers baked a giant pie to celebrate the recovery of King George III from a bout of madness.
Over two centuries later and the residents’ pie-making tradition is still going strong – they have made a total of 10 monster pastries to mark various notable occasions, including the Millennium when they excelled themselves with a 12-tonner.
It was indeed in search of food that we headed over to Denby Dale last Friday. But it wasn’t pies we were after. Instead we fancied sampling something altogether spicier than meat and potatoes and booked a table at the Aagrah Indian restaurant, located in a converted traditional stone house along Wakefield Road.
The Denby Dale eatery is one of 12 Aagrah restaurants in a Kashmiri kingdom within Yorkshire which stretches from Tadcaster to Doncaster. MD and Executive Chef Mohammed Aslam was awarded an MBE in the 2010 Queen’s New Year Honours list.
We arrived to find the restaurant moderately busy and were warmly welcomed by a friendly waiter. We walked through the bar, which also does a brisk take-away trade for locals, and into a single dining room with cream and gold coloured walls.
The interior was brightly lit and slightly Spartan for an Asian restaurant and we were shown to a table with a picture of a happy elephant on the wall.
After a quick glance at the extensive menu, the realisation dawned that deciding what to order was going to be no mean feat, so we ordered the customary two pints of lager and settled down to study the vast array of offerings.
The standard popadoms and pickles tray arrived. What was different about this one was that the mango chutney was unlike any we’d ever tasted before. Unusually, it was flavoured with cloves and the balanced blend of sweet and savoury flavours kick-started our taste buds ready for the main event.
We decided against the whole stuffed lamb at £250, as we were 13 people short. Another unusual item was the chicken stir fry, which made an appearance in the ‘English dishes’ section.
The starters were all reasonably priced, several were only £2.50, although portions were on the small side. On reflection, this was probably a good idea, as the main courses were all very generous. We could have shared one between the two of us.
We began with ravi (sea bass) fillet at £4.25 and chicken tikka at £3.50. The tikka was good, although I would have preferred mine a little juicier. The sea bass, however, was gorgeous. Delicately cooked with tender mouthfuls of succulent fish coated in a delicious spicy coating, it was one of the best starters we’d ever eaten in an Indian restaurant. Both dishes were on the spicy side.
We poured over the list of dozens of main courses, including specially-starred dishes which had been eaten by Bollywood stars on a visit to Yorkshire during the Indian Film Festival. There’s also over a page of vegetarian dishes.