Balooshai

Arch 3, Viaduct Street, Huddersfield HD1 5AW

Rating

Venue Balooshai

Tel 01484 559055

Website N/A

Opening hours Monday - Thursday 5.30pm-11pm, Friday 5pm-Midnight, Sunday 4.30pm-10.45pm (ish)

Children Yes

Disabled access Yes

The bill £35 (Including two set meals with wine, plus pickle tray, poppodoms and beers).

I HATE the cold. People say “Oh it’s bracing” and “blows the cobwebs away.”

What a load of cobblers – and if you’ve got cobwebs on you, bathing more often should be top of your list rather than fresh air

It was a cold night recently when me and my partner sought solace from that bizarre Huddersfield freezing head wind which seems to follow you around and be in you face no matter what direction you’re facing.

It was only eight-ish and there were only a couple of spaces left at Balooshai.

We asked for a beer each and poppadoms plus pickle tray and perused the menu.

We’d only gone and made a mistake already!

Wednesday and Thursday nights are Brownie nights. This doesn’t mean that a troop of young girls come out to rub sticks together to make a fire upon which your curry is cooked.

Rather, it means that the hungry diner can get a set meal, incorporating a starter, main and rice or naan, for £10.

Or you can get two plus a bottle of wine for £27.50. We drained our beers and ordered our wine!

To open, we had the mixed starter which included chicken tikka, satay, seekh kebab, veggie pakoras and cheese fritters as well as chargrilled onions and tomatoes.

The meat was full of flavour and the pakoras and fritters were crunchy as you bit into them, but melted in your mouth.

The veg was a welcome distraction and was tasty as a bit of a mouth cleanser before taking a bite from a new bit of the starter.

Plates cleared, we looked forward to our main courses – achar gosht and chicken balti.

The achar gosht is lamb cooked to a hot and sour taste with tamarind, lemon, fennel and mustard seed stuffed chillies.

And, yes, it was as delicious as it sounds.

The thick sauce coated the meat and before half of the large portion had disappeared my belt buckle was feeling the strain.

On the other side of the table the balti was disappearing at a rate of knots.

The dish was sweet and juicy due to the well-cooked chunks of fresh vegetable in it and was lovely to lean over and nick a forkful, though my dining partner may not agree!

The rice and naan did what you expect them to and complemented the main dishes.

We finished off our meal and drained our wine glasses and marvelled that the meal we had just had was just £27.50.

As well as the Brownie during midweek, Balsooshai does what’s called a Hearty Course on Tuesdays and Sundays between 4.30pm and 9pm for £8.50 a head.

To be honest, I didn’t ask what this was as I was more concerned with not popping a button from my straining shirt into the taxi driver’s eye and causing a crash on the ring road.

The menu at Balooshai does everything and more you would expect.

If you’re not a huge curry fan you can have something you will have tried before – including Dhansak and Jalfrezi.

But if you’re in the mood for something different, there’s enough scope to have your tastebuds dancing to a different beat.

They have offers on at different times during the week and have regular takeaway offers if you fancy dining in the privacy of your own home.

At difficult times like these it’s a treat to see a place doing great food at good prices – and that’s Balooshai.