Pilau Rice - British restaurant version

Jolteh · 14 Mar 2012 at 15:02

Maximum Triceratops said:
Ken Hom once taught me that you have a finger nail depth of water above the rice, bring to the boil and simmer with a lid on until the water has evaporated, works for me!

That's what I do (although I do up to the first finger joint). Also I find leaving it for a few minutes with the lid on, but off the heat, gives a better result.

Robi · 15 Mar 2012 at 08:23

Psycho Sonny said:
you don't even have a clue about the industry and how it has prospered until now.

i would say the majority of kitchen staff in indian restaurants are illegally working or not even supposed to be in the country. in fact most of them couldn't even cook a curry until they came to this country and it was the only job they could get.

the ranks are dishwasher to fryer then to tandoori chef then to curry chef.

they start as a dishwasher and whilst they are doing that, on the fryers day off, they have to do the fryer as well as the dishes. on the tandoori chef's day off the fryer has to do the tandoor as well as the fryer, on the curry chef's day off the tandoori chef has to do the curries and both he and the fryer do the tandoor between them. obviously they help each other out too if they are busy.

that's basically how they work themselves up to curry chef, they are basically taught on the job. so there you have it most chef's in indian restaurants started out as dishwashers.

one of my chefs told me of how they used to come over back in the day, through pakistan, then afghanistan, but that wasn't the hard part, the forests in russia were.

so don't tell me i dont have a clue, most indian chef's up until a few years ago when the recession hit were illegal. i would say a huge majority of them, since illegals dont pay taxes, and the government need money, they have been raiding restaurants all over the country and forcing restaurants to employ british nationals.

some proof below

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/...eld_after_Indian_restaurant_immigration_raid/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/913...ecretary-raided-by-immigration-officials.html

http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/wimbledon/9581067.Married_couple_arrested_in_immigration_raid/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...gal-kitchen-staff-held.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/c...er-illegal-workers-1.930923?referrerPath=home

so yeah, most of the chef's dont give a flying **** they are just here to make money and send it home to india, hope they dont get caught too quick, and if they do they simply run away and go work somewhere else.

i know the whole industry like the back of my hand, our restaurant when we had it was never raided, then when the recession hit, it was raided every year on the trot.

it took me 5 seconds to find those stories all of them recent, i could link you to a hundred more as well if you want.

loljustlol

Maximum Triceratops · 15 Mar 2012 at 10:12

Robi said:
loljustlol

To be fair there has been 2 restaraunts in my City that have being busted recently for illegal immigrants so there is some truth in his post.

Robi · 15 Mar 2012 at 10:31

Maximum Triceratops said:
To be fair there has been 2 restaraunts in my City that have being busted recently for illegal immigrants so there is some truth in his post.

These generalisations are so annoying.

i would say the majority of kitchen staff in indian restaurants are illegally working or not even supposed to be in the country. in fact most of them couldn't even cook a curry until they came to this country and it was the only job they could get.

Have you conducted a nationwide census that we know nothing about?

Ahleckz · 15 Mar 2012 at 11:17

Robi, his family own an Indian takeaway (apparently) and therefore he knows every single thing about Indian food, running a business and rental markets that there could possibly be to know. :rolleyes:

He's an egomanical clown.

Robi · 15 Mar 2012 at 13:59

Moses said:
He knows everything, but doesn't know any specifics when asked .

Psycho Sonny · 15 Mar 2012 at 23:48

Moses said:
He knows everything, but doesn't know any specifics when asked .

im pretty sure richard branson knows what the make of the rice is served on virgin airlines too :rolleyes:

Psycho Sonny · 15 Mar 2012 at 23:51

Maximum Triceratops said:
To be fair there has been 2 restaraunts in my City that have being busted recently for illegal immigrants so there is some truth in his post.

i would hope so, since i personally know the owners of many indian restaurants and their chefs.

but times are changing, with the raids now being so frequent, i bet you see a lot of restaurants it not so busy areas closing down.

Robi · 16 Mar 2012 at 09:22

Psycho Sonny said:
im pretty sure richard branson knows what the make of the rice is served on virgin airlines too

Yet another extreme comparison. Owning a single tacky Indian takeaway is slightly different to being the owner of a multi million pound organisation with multiple operations all going on at the same time.

Robi · 16 Mar 2012 at 09:24

Psycho Sonny said:
i would hope so, since i personally know the owners of many indian restaurants and their chefs.

but times are changing, with the raids now being so frequent, i bet you see a lot of restaurants it not so busy areas closing down.

iirc paisley had 5 main indian restaurants in it, now it has 2.

Guess Paisley sets the generic standard for the thousands of outlets across the UK?

anything-but · 18 Mar 2012 at 11:21

Reply from the other half follows....

Sainsburys are about to launch a big promotion selling a line called Badshah Royale which a high quality rice also sold to numerous resturants, Amazon are competative in their pricing and their sales have increased somewhat over the past couple of weeks.This is probably due to people such as yourselves being ripped off by paying £60 for a 10kgs bag, do you have the name of this company perchance?

...She works for a major rice manufacturer (not Tilda!) so has damm good knowledge of the rice market,plus i used to work there too packaging the stuff.

Psycho Sonny · 18 Mar 2012 at 18:39

anything-but said:
Reply from the other half follows....

Sainsburys are about to launch a big promotion selling a line called Badshah Royale which a high quality rice also sold to numerous resturants, Amazon are competative in their pricing and their sales have increased somewhat over the past couple of weeks.This is probably due to people such as yourselves being ripped off by paying £60 for a 10kgs bag, do you have the name of this company perchance?

...She works for a major rice manufacturer (not Tilda!) so has damm good knowledge of the rice market,plus i used to work there too packaging the stuff.

hmmmmmm a rice expert appears.

confirms what i said is indeed correct.

expect certain people never to post in said thread again

i know the name of the supplier we originally used who charged up to £80 per bag, it's in the thread somewhere.

but the new supplier i have no idea, they were a small outfit, basically cowboys who were exploiting a gap in the market, i think they only dealt in rice and imported it themselves and sold it themselves and only operated in glasgow. they charged £40-£60 per bag depending on the season.

i'm not a rice expert, i never dealt with it directly, i'm not a chef, i just looked after the place from time to time, i did run it for several years, but that was a long long time ago. it's now been leased out.

can you ask your other half to provide more details? because i know a lot of people in the trade or we end up buying another restaurant, although in the current market that is highly unlikely, our current "tacky" restaurant is worth over £500K, and doesn't really provide a decent enough income for that sort of investment, we are now looking at other avenues. but if they can supply high quality rice at much lower prices, then it would be a good way to save cash, money is money at the end of the day. im sure the mates i have in the business would appreciate it.

anything-but · 18 Mar 2012 at 19:00

Just noticed your post.

Expect an answer as soon as she stops browsing her food blogs.

What is it exactly you wanted to know? Prices/rice types and such?

Psycho Sonny · 18 Mar 2012 at 19:13

anything-but said:
Just noticed your post.

Expect an answer as soon as she stops browsing her food blogs.

What is it exactly you wanted to know? Prices/rice types and such?

price of 10kg bags, delivery costs, or local vendors to buy from.

name of rice, etc. basically how to get it and how much it costs.

i can then pass this on to a few mates to check it out for themselves.

anything-but · 18 Mar 2012 at 19:49

Here`s her reply...

A big price war is about break out amongst the big supermarkets (because Ramadan falls early this year) so rice prices will be very competitive and the ethnic supermarkets and the smaller retailers quite frankly cannot compete, I know last year some of our smaller customer's were buying pallets of Badshah 10kgs (pakistani basmati) from the likes of Asda because the price was so low.
I've just had a look at mysupermarket and the price for Badshah 10kgs is currently being sold for £10.45, its a good quality of rice and a very good seller amongst those in catering. If your local Asda doesn't stock this you can request them to bring this line in for you. We only sell full pallets (98 x 10kgs bags) but depending on your area l can probably put you in touch with a local wholesaler who will sell you with smaller quantities.

...She did say for obvious reasons she can`t post prices,but if you wanted to follow it up,i can PM you her work number and she`ll put you onto a rep who`ll give you all the pricing info.

Psycho Sonny · 18 Mar 2012 at 20:10

we are in glasgow, i doubt any asda up here does 10kg's of rice.

cheers for the info, will PM you if i need more. we are out the game so it will be for mates, etc anyway.

Ahleckz · 18 Mar 2012 at 22:16

Psycho Sonny said:
our current "tacky" restaurant is worth over £500K, and doesn't really provide a decent enough income for that sort of investment, we are now looking at other avenues. but if they can supply high quality rice at much lower prices, then it would be a good way to save cash, money is money at the end of the day. im sure the mates i have in the business would appreciate it.

What restaurant is that then?

Psycho Sonny said:
we are in glasgow, i doubt any asda up here does 10kg's of rice.

cheers for the info, will PM you if i need more. we are out the game so it will be for mates, etc anyway.

The Tesco at Silverburn sells 10kg bags of rice, as does the ASDA at Toryglen. I have a 10kg bag of rice from the Silverburn Tesco in my kitchen atm.

Psycho Sonny · 18 Mar 2012 at 23:48

Ahleckz said:
What restaurant is that then?

The Tesco at Silverburn sells 10kg bags of rice, as does the ASDA at Toryglen. I have a 10kg bag of rice from the Silverburn Tesco in my kitchen atm.

it's one in paisley, but as i say we just own the property and have nothing to do with the business it is leased out. it isnt the name that was mentioned earlier either.

a bit like you owning a flat, but say if a person was using that flat as his office, you cant exactly say you own an office, you just own the property side of things.

are those decent quality rice though?

im sure you can get them anywhere, but its high quality my mates would be after.

since i have nothing to do with the restaurant itself im not going to give out names, as it has nothing to do with us anymore apart from collecting rent. surely that is understandable?

Ahleckz · 19 Mar 2012 at 00:24

You could buy the entirety of Paisley for half a mil.

Do you appreciate how you come across though? You sit there and say one thing - "ASDA don't sell 10kg of rice" and then say something totally different when proved wrong. You don't seem to accept that you can ever be wrong, and your continual dodging of what restaurant you own seems odd. For someone who has nothing to do with the restaurant, you sure do seem to like to tell us all about how your restaurant is the only one in the World who can make 'real' Indian and other nonsense.

Psycho Sonny · 19 Mar 2012 at 00:27

Ahleckz said:
You could buy the entirety of Paisley for half a mil.

Do you appreciate how you come across though? You sit there and say one thing - "ASDA don't sell 10kg of rice" and then say something totally different when proved wrong. You don't seem to accept that you can ever be wrong, and your continual dodging of what restaurant you own seems odd. For someone who has nothing to do with the restaurant, you sure do seem to like to tell us all about how your restaurant is the only one in the World who can make 'real' Indian and other nonsense.

when have i ever said that?

i just state that proper indian food is better than the made up dishes designed for britain. never have i stated that my restaurant makes the best in the world, in fact i just state that i know what im talking about because of all my experience within the field, most of which came from the restaurant trade.

but no longer have anything to do with it, but i still know whats what.

a bit like a retired martial artist still having all the skills.