One place I've always wanted to visit for my curry fix is Brick Lane. Heard both good and bad things about it so I thought the only way to find out for sure is to pay a visit in person. Had a day out in London on Friday with my son so we made it our last port of call...boy was it a mistake.

There seems to be no end of restaurants to choose from, most of them have 'Best curry chef' or 'Best curry house in London' stickers proudly stuck on the front of their window, I'm sure they get these printed off from some dodgy website.

In the end we chose Aladins, had plenty of good reviews, some famous punters in the past including Gordon Ramsey and even King Charles....can't go wrong I thought.

So, the papadams came up first...stone cold...not a good start But I thought I'd give them the benefit of doubt.

Next up was a Chicken tikka korai...onions and peppers raw, dodgy chicken tikka and hardly any sauce, what was there was bland.

I ordered a Chicken tikka pathia balti...awful....tasteless chicken tikka, runny gravy with no onions/peppers and sauce that tasted nothing like a pathia, no sweetness, heat, really poor.

The onion bhajis we had were even worse, more like stodgy pakoras, nothing like the light crispy ones my local place give me.

Don't know who writes the reviews for this place but I can honestly say one of the worst curries I've had in a very long time!!!!!

Good to see you're still about Pete and still cooking.There is so much info on BIR cooking these days its unbelievable.When I think back to when this site first started-and even before that-think the site was called 'Into curry' or something....the whole BIR process was top secret, chefs were very reluctant to give any info out and some of the methods people were posting were plainly wrong.

I like the look of Chef Din's recipes, his gravy is next on my to do list.It does look similar to one of Julian's, actually when I originally had my home lessons my chef told me that they used to drop a whole chicken into the gravy so I know it's been done in the past.A lovely restaurant I used to go to had the option to have your main dish with either breast meat or dark meat...maybe this was the technique they were using with their base gravy.Does any remember Ghanna on here?  If I remember correctly many years ago she found out here local curry house were putting some sort of chicken jelly/stock/bones in theier garvy...I think she was a vegetarian and so was most upset.

I can't believe the amount of forums, videos, facebook sites etc that are now out there sharing info about BIR cooking, When I think back to when I started cooking(over 30 years ago) there was very little stuff available and really no dedicated cook books.
I do wonder though how many of these authors have actually set foot in a genuine kitchen and know what really goes on. Having said that there is now a lot of great info readily available for free and a lot of great youtube videos...particularly like Syeed's videos and techniques.

Sadly my own local takeaway(the one where I was allowed in the kitchen) has rapidly gone downhill. The chef has moved on, portions have got smaller and the food is really not as good. Literally had the worst keema naan bread I've ever had recently-time to move on. I do however have another takeaway that's reopened not far away-the place doesn't look that good from the outside but the food is wonderful. I'm now quite good friends with chef so hopefully another kitchen visit maybe on the cards!

Just watched syed's latest video showing how to cook service onions. Identical to my local chef's version, even down to using ajwain seeds. I used to see these seeds in my local shop and never really knew how BIR chefs might use them, that is until I was allowed to see my chef cook in the kitchen. If anyone has any doubts that syed's recipes are not genuine I can say this one again is spot on.

There's certainly a lot of info and videos coming out at the moment. When I think back to my first attempts at takeaway cooking, some thirty years ago information like this just did not exist,chefs were so secretive and actually getting into a kitchen was impossible.

I have no idea if this guy is a genuine BIR chef, however his tomato puree and pre cooked onions method is exactly how my local chef prepares his. I watched him cook the tomato puree once, I initially thought the tub I had seen was some sort of massala sauce,but for some reason he cooks it. I'm guessing it's another level  of flavour and he hasn't got to wait to cook the tomato puree out on a busy service.

Same goes for the pre cooked onions. When I first starting visiting the kitchen they had a large tub of 'raw service' onions. Next time I went they had cooked them, the Chef simply explained that they were so busy they couldn't keep up cooking dishes waiting for the raw onions to cook.