Hurry curry

I've no idea what took so long before we had our first curry in London. Oh, right, all of the various wedding related activities featured food and so it wasn't until our final night in London that we sojourned to Brick Lane upon a friend's recommendation to try Balti.

Until recently, I didn't realize what this particular dish was and apparently it differs from a regular curry in the method of preparation and presentation. In the last ten minutes of preparation, the contents are cooked at high temperatures in a distinctive flat-bottomed wok which gives the dish its name: a balti. The fresh spices, herbs and chillis added during the final stages of cooking make it flavoursome and colourful.

We chose to sample the dishes at Standard Balti House in East London and tried an amazing mulligatawny soup and vegetable samosa starters, then a lamb tikka curry as well as a chicken balti dish with naan and rice. OMG! I am drooling just thinking about it now. Luckily, there were leftovers.

Anyway, this was a wonderful way to top off a lazy day in which we didn't manage to leave the hotel until the tea time. Then we hauled ourselves across town to Oxford and Regent streets to windowshop at Liberty, Savile Row (particularly Kilgour) and Jermyn Street (especially Floris).

Next stop: Paris via Eurostar.

Punchlines
"You know, people are always asking me...
...if they can milk me. If it's in the morning, I'm generally amenable to it. But otherwise it can be rather annoying," says Crossword.