Shababs Balti Restaurant
THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
It’s Villa’s final home game of what’s been a fairly disappointing season, so we’re a reduced crew of five and there’s a request for an old school balti at Shababs before the match.
It’s my first visit for a long while, having blacklisted it when they got a zero food hygiene rating and now under different ownership their most recent inspection (Feb 2022) is an improved, although barely satisfactory three. I’d insist we go somewhere else, but given I must’ve eaten here at least once a week for a few years in the late 80s I’ve agreed, if only for the nostalgia.
It’s a warm spring evening, so I’ve walked down from Moseley with the opportunity to take in the hustle and bustle of Ladywood Road. It must’ve been at least five years since I’ve been here and I’m totally surprised at the disappearance of balti restaurants; replaced by fast food outlets… fried chicken, pizza and most prevalent are burger joints. There must be as many places doing burgers as there were doing curries in the heyday of The Balti Triangle; now the Bermuda Triangle of balti restaurants.
I’m fifteen minutes early and ‘greeted’ by—I’m guessing—the manager and whilst it’s only a third full, I’m made to feel it’s a major inconvenience turning up without a booking. I’m eventually shown to a banqueted booth for six, with a glass topped table protecting its mammoth sized menu. It would ordinarily take twenty minutes for me to process but I’d already decided before arriving that I’m ordering what I always used to have.
Before the lads arrive, I’ve decided I’m sticking to water and pass on the offer of poppadoms, ordering a lamb tikka instead. By the time everyone arrives there are 12 cans of lager on the table, making my decision to only drink water seem ridiculous. No sooner, than it’s taken for them to settle in, an order of ten poppadoms is made and I’ve easily had my share and into my second can, when my lamb tikka arrives.
Lamb tikka
There are six, perfectly charcoal crusted and fabulously rusty red, decent sized chunks of lamb on that halfway point between chewy and tender, but its flavour packs a punch and gets the mouth tingling. The only disappointment is the accompanying ‘red and white sauce’. At its best, it was laden with fresh slices of onion and a wonderful balance between the lightly acidic heat off the red and the creamy sweet of the white; this is just red and white plain yoghurt with a few soggy strands of onion.
Chicken & mushroom balti
Before long the curries arrive in what look like the steel bowls fire blackened since the late 80s, bringing on the first real misty-eyed wave of nostalgia. But, mine’s a sparse looking chicken and mushroom balti, with what must be a single, sliced button mushroom. In terms of flavour it’s a nothing remarkable medium-on-the-mild-side generic curry expelling my romanticised memories. Although I’ve no qualms with the wonderfully sticky and sultana heavy peshwari naan, it’s just double the size the curry needs.
Peshwari naan
We’re now in a hurry to get to the game, so after swigging back our beers we head to the counter to settle up which, even including service charge and rounded up, is just £15 each. At that price, it almost seems churlish to nitpick, but next time I head down here, it’ll probably be for a burger.
163-165 Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook, Birmingham B12 8LQ
6/10 FOR NOSTALGIA’S SAKE
