BRITAIN celebrated its national dish this week with National Curry Day. Food surveys consistently place curry above more traditional British fare such as fish-and-chips or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with more than two and a half million diners using the nation's 8,000 Indian restaurants every week. The award for the Best Curry Restaurant in Britain was this year given to the Chutney Mary restaurant in London for the second time. The restaurant, on the fashionable King's Road in Chelsea, also won the award in 1991 and owner Namita Punjabi says the capital's Indian food scene is better than that in India or Pakistan. She said: "The Indian restaurant scene in London is ahead of anything in the subcontinent. At least good regional food is available in a few restaurants in London. In India you have to get invited to a home in the region to taste it. It sounds amazing but it's true. Indians have not yet discovered their own regional food." Members of the Curry Club sent 5,000 reports on 50,000 individual restaurant visits. A survey showed people in Wales, Scotland and the West Midlands were most enthusiastic about cooking a curry, especially for the day, with 63 per cent in each region pledging to join in. As a nation, 67 per cent of those aged between 15 and 44 said they would have curry tomorrow. .
London, United Kingdom