I said lady, step inside my Hyundai

So, it’s finally happened. Our trusty drive Steven Archibald (Archie) has given up the ghost; broken down; kaput; we’ve cruised ‘round the hood with the (manually wound down, if we can find the winder in the foot well) windows down for the final time.

While it was sad (sad? I was DEVASTATED - TE) when his head gasket finally blew, after 13 years of faithful service it was hardly a huge surprise. And now he can finally enjoy his time in the sun, it also meant we could think about a nippier replacement. Or certainly one with central locking; and less rust.

Which is how we came to take delivery of Beck - named after a lyric in Debra, one of the greatest falsetto funk numbers you’re ever likely to hear and already on heavy rotation on the stereo – with his wondrous Champion Blue paint job (a special release for the World Cup, they saw us coming) and a whole host of electrical mod cons with the potential to go wrong…

And after several long weeks of being bus wankers and utilising shanks’s pony, there was much excited anticipation for our first Sunday spin. And, whilst not quite the glamorous hills of Glendale, a jaunt straight down the A40 for breakfast in Brent seemed like a pretty good second choice. What have the Hollywood Hills got on the beauty of Hangar Lane gyratory.

Yet another Eater tip, this time from their 5 restaurants to try this weekend, a Friday column that tips the unsung and the far-flung, with the proviso that all suggestions must not be featured in either the Eater 38 Essential map, nor the monthly-updated Heatmap, and must be outside Zone 1.

Luckily, it often features somewhere from around my old endz, with exotic places such as Southall, Harrow and Rayners Lane getting a shout. A few weeks ago it was Dosa Express. Now, I can get pretty incredible dosas less than a ten minute stroll from my house, but that's no fun when you have a new motor to show off. I was also fascinated by the picture used to illustrate the story, showing the vast menu made of laminated sheets of A4, that stretched neatly across one wall and around the corner.

It's probably best to google the menu before you go, especially if you're indecisive, as the choice is vast (it also covers most the wall opposite) and is arranged with absolutely no rhyme or reason. Failing that, just look around and see what other people are eating, or what is being freshly cooked on the hotplate next to the counter, at least that way you can avoid food envy.

To drink we had ginger coffee and sweet, fudgy cashew and almond milk. I say we, but I found they smelt a little too much like scented draw liners and left them for my wife, who was hugely happy to have something sweet and soothing alongside all the fire and spice.

As well as dosa they offer a handful of other dishes, including vada, or lentil doughnuts, that were piled up temptingly on the counter, spinach pakoras and veggie samosas. We started with papri chaat, papri translating as wafer, or discs of crisp pastry, and chaat meaning 'to lick'. The pastry discs are broken up and layered with chickpeas, tamarind chutney, onions, yoghurt, chilli and fresh herbs, making a crunchy, sweet, sour and spicy snack.

We also ordered some chilli garlic paneer, that was served in a gargantuan portion that the photo doesn't quite do justice to. An classic Indo Chinese dish, the cheese curd cubes are stir fried with spring onions in a sweet and fiery sauce with huge amounts of fragrant garlic, chilli and ginger, served here with a token leaf of crunchy iceberg lettuce.

Obviously I had spent most of the week dissecting the menu but in the end eschewed the additions of cheese, salad, chutney and noodles, plumping instead for a classic rava masala dosa. Made with semolina, which helps give it its distinctive lacy appearance, the crisp pancake had been folded around a generous filling of spiced potato. Certainly beats cornflakes.

Alongside was a ladle of the familiar sambar, a thin vegetable stew with lentils and spices, a rich tomato and onion chutney and a virginal coconut chutney. The latter always looks so invitingly cool and fresh, yet ends up being the most insidiously fiery of the lot. Here was no exception, and I could just about note the sympathetic glances from the ladies behind the counter through the tears in my eyes.

The Ewing went off piste with the pesarattu paneer masala dosa, a pancake made with moog daal (green gram flour) instead of urad dal (black gram flour) and stuffed full with spiced potato, peppers, onion and shredded paneer cheese. This was a top rate dosa, although I'm not sure you could really distinguish a huge difference between this and a standard dosa, other than the slightly bilious tinge and a slightly spongier texture. 

And here he is, the main man himself, ready to whisk us away for some more culinary adventures. He's even got cup holders.

Super Saturday

Everyone who supports a team has their ‘golden’ era. For me, I would like to say it was the mighty Tottenham of the late 80s / early 90s, with players like Gary Mabbutt and Gary Lineker. Sadly, for me, I was a whisker too late and I ended up with Jason Dozzell and Jason Cundy. That said I was lucky enough that my first real Spurs memory was the 1991 FA cup semi-final, a 3-1 victory against our North London rivals which spawned the famous chant “we’re going to Wembley cos we beat the Arsenal”, something that I, endearingly naively, thought was a common garden occurrence. 

Of course, it wasn't; that is until last season, when White Hart Lane was finally put to the wrecking ball and Spurs were temporarily afforded the chance to call the hallowed Wembley turf  ‘home’ for the 2017/18 Premier League season.

Long story short, it’s how the Ewing and I came to be heading to Wembley on a Saturday afternoon to see what would, hopefully, be their first home league win of the season (and hoping that it wouldn’t be a repeat of our last visit, where we conceived to get knocked out of the Europa league and Alli got sent off while I was in the loo).

As with the time before (with a visit to, what now appears sadly defunct, Karhe Queen), we decided our pre-match prep would be in the form of a curry at the Sri Lankan/South Indian stalwart Palm Beach. Perhaps not the greatest choice before squeezing in close proximity with thousands of other people, but with the range of good, cheap Indian food available on the High Road, even I could happily forego a dirty pre-match burger from the van.

The menu is big - a meandering tome that spans across the two countries, taking in soups, dosa, noodles, tandoori, South Indian specialities, devilled dishes and biryani. Ever-prepared, I had already studied it extensively online, but if you're not as into pre-planning I'd recommend heading straight for the Palm Beach specials, where you can find Indo-chinese food and Sri Lankan dishes such as lamb intestines, anchovies, rabbit curry and the, Dutch-influenced, lamprais.

Football + Curry = lager and large bottles of icy cold Lion did a fine job of quenching thirsts and quelling fires. They also have the mighty Lion stout, an export style stout that young men  in plaid shirts would be raving over if it was being served in plastic half pint glasses in a corregated shed in Shacklewell.

If anything could get me to become veggie it’s Indian food - finding myself powerless when confronted by a creamy tarka daal or an earthy saag bhaji. I particularly enjoy their treatment of the aubergine, a tricky veg to nail properly. Here it's served ‘Jaffna-style’, cooked to tender collapse, languishing in a rich pool of smoky, spiced oil.

Of course, I couldn’t really commit to just veg as it would mean missing out on delights like the vast portion of tender squid that had been dry-fried in a dark spice paste rich with shrimp and tamarind and was impossibly delicious; all crispy and soft and sweet and fiery. A classic Sri Lankan dish that’s unprepossessing looks belie it’s delicious charms.

Another dish that would have had a pop-up in a Brixton boxpark by now, had it been a more ‘Grammable proposition, is the kothu roti. A dish so named because of the sound the knives make as they chop the ingredients on a hot plate, it’s a dish borne of ingenuity with roadside vendors using leftover bread from breakfast (or string hoppers or puttu), chopped up and fried with a mixture of meat vegetables and eggs. 

While not being classically good looking, it’s a dish with depth and charm; certainly worthy of a second date. Here the venison version was outstanding and utterly moreish - compelling me to keep eating to the point I pretty much had to roll myself out and back down the High Road.

Additionally, deliciously, yet entirely unnecessary was a fragrant Malabar prawn curry from the Keralan coast. A dish full of plump crustaceans in a rich and fragrant coconut gravy, spiced with curry leaves and red chilli, that was soaked up perfectly by with a bowl of old school fluffy pilau rice, flecked through with grains of luminous orange.

I've yet to make acquaintance with an Indian/Sri Lankan pudding I've really enjoyed, despite my greed-driven perseverance. Not wanting to admit defeat, and as the Ewing was ordering pistachio kulfi (no pic, very nice) and a cup of spiced masala chai, I decided to try the watalappan, or baked coconut custard.

Served on a banana leaf, this was a wobbly slice of cashew-topped joy. that tasted like the old fashioned baked bread pudding my next door neighbour made when i was growing up, only the familiar vanilla and brown sugar had been replaced by pandan and jaggery. An exceptionally good pud, by any standards.

Grinding out a 1-0 victory against the Cherries was hardly the stuff of my schoolgirl Wembley fantasies, but as someone who still remembers the joyful feeling of reaching the end of the season and finishing higher than mid-table and with a positive goal difference, I’ll happily take it.

Spurs Are on Their Way to Wembley

You’d think, after all the nerve-shredding high drama of our visit to White Hart Lane, the Ewing would have been put off football for a long while. But, mere weeks later she was clamouring to go and see them again, this time at Wembley versus KAA Gent, in pursuit of a place in the last 16 of the Europa League.

While Spurs European campaign so far this season had ended in ignominy, no wins at Wembley (their adopted home for continental forays while the ‘new’ Lane is being built) and being booted out of the Champions League after failing to qualify from their group, I had a better feeling about their match against the Belgian Buffalos, despite a thoroughly turgid first leg the week before where the Lilywhites had contrived to lose one nil and failed to chalk up the vital away goal (an appalling match where they played with no vigour at all - TE).

A girl can't chant on an empty stomach (the Ewing had spent most the week learning the words to Ossie's Dream, Chas and Daves effort for the 1981 cup final - 'Spurs are on their way to Wembley, Tottenham's gonna do it again! They can't stop'em, the boys from Tottenham, the boys from White Hart Lane, Oi!' Repeat until your wife gets pissed off with you - TE), so after a rather overcrowded train ride - thanks to the best efforts of Storm Doris blowing trees across the railway tracks from Beaconsfield to Birmingham - we stopped for a pre-match meal at Karahe Queen. 

A cheap and cheerful hole in the wall complete with laminated menus; Pakistani pop music; (very) late night opening and a BYO booze policy (a four pack of Ghost Ship, we're not lager louts you know), it's the perfect place to call in for some sustenance before or after the game.

Thanks to a diary conflict, I had already been out for lunch earlier in the day (a chilli dog on a belgian waffle followed by a chocolate peanut ice cream affogato) and, unsurprisingly, was feeling rather delicate of appetite. Equally unsurprisingly, the Ewing was primed and ready for action, so she started on the gratis dips and salad, featuring rather wan discs of carrot, while we waited for one of her favourites from the starter section, paneer tikka.

While I personally prefer risking a bout of heartburn from the spicier green chilli version of the familiar cottage cheese chunks, the tikka spice marinated cubes - threaded onto a skewer before being grilled in the tandoor and served on a bed of of pepper and onion – were still very good.

The keema here, as well as including the more familiar pea, is also offered with the addition of tinned sweetcorn. An ingredient that also crops up in a variety of the meat and veg karahi dishes on the menu. While this may horrify some, much like when the yellow kernels crop up on pizza, apparently it’s a familiar addition to many home-style curries in the north of India and Pakistan. I liked it, but then I like pretty much anything that included the Jolly Green Giant’s staple food source (yes, even the occasional deep pan pizza).

Something you also don’t often see on an anglicised menu is methi, or fenugreek leaves. Here they were added to the chicken karahi; a curry with tomatoes, ginger, garlic and 'secret spices'; and cooked and served in the eponymous iron pot. If I was being extra picky, I might have preferred a little extra greenery, but overall it was a well-balanced dish - nicely spiced and not too rich and oily.

To finish, we shared an aloo paratha, layers of enriched wholewheat dough stuffed with a spiced potato mixture and fried. If anyone’s come up with a better idea than stuffing bread with more carbs then I’ve yet to hear it, and far better for mopping up your curry than pedestrian pilau rice.

The bill came to a shade over £20, with tip, a not unreasonable amount of dosh for a reasonable amount of food – although it was only my reduced capacity after my lunchtime escapades which prevented me ordering anymore. 

Reduced capacity wasn’t a fate that befell Wembley later that evening, after a reduced price ticket deal saw Spurs sell out a full capacity stadium for the game. Sadly, although the N17 faithful were in good voice, a silly challenge from Alli (the author's favourite - TE) and a goal from Kane (the wonder boy, my fave! - TE) - sadly at the wrong end - put pay to our progress. Still, if the rumours are true and my beloved team relocated temporarily to Brent for the 2018/19 season then chance are I’ll be sampling the menu again.