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Beyond the Curry Mile...
Neil Sowerby25/ 4/2008
IN a week when the Bangladeshi Caterers Association mounted a Trafalgar Square demo to protest against a government immigration crackdown threatening the future of the £3.5bn curry industry, it was with some trepidation I ventured out for an Indian.
The association estimates there are 27,500 vacancies in Bangladeshi-run restaurants - the core of our corner curry houses.
So I half-expected the tumbleweed to be blowing through the cottage-like interior of Coriander, with its view over Southern Cemetery. Instead, we got the warmest of welcomes in this quirky, earnest little eaterie, now open two years.
The pink paper tablecloths matching pink-washed walls (there is also some vine-tendril wallpaper the like of which I haven't seen since Great Aunt Lena passed away) are at odds with Coriander's modernist culinary mission.
Let's not shirk the issue. The majority of those `threatened' Bangladeshi restaurants serve up some ghastly regulation slop bearing little resemblance to any regional cuisine.
They give us the vindaloos, dopiuaza, bhunas, we demand - and deserve.
Coriander, aware of the English marketplace, brackets the aforementioned under Traditional Dishes on the menu. In contrast, the Special Dishes, while hardly offering hardcore Bengal delicacies, utilise pistachio, chestnut, citrus marinades, lentils and the like in intriguing combinations and the emphasis on seafood reflects the cuisine's heritage.
Classics
There is a nod, too, to the North Indian Mughal classics.
All this is done, according to Coriander's manifesto, while eschewing unhealthy excess of oil and ghee, artificial colourings, processed foods, and seeking nutritional balance with herbs and fresh vegetables.
It's all a bit reminiscent of Dilli, in Altrincham, with its Ayurvedic emphasis.
The proof is in the eating and there was little to fault in a simple early evening supper.
Mountain lentils wrapped in a little puri, garlic prawn, chaat of chickpeas in a sweet-sour tamarind sauce were light and refreshing starters.
There was perhaps a chilli kick missing in the Coriander Special Seafish Curry (£12.90), but lime and turmeric enhanced the tangle of prawns, squid and cod on our plate.
For the same price, the Emperor's Delight delighted this humble courtier. Panir, chickpeas and egg slices figured in a coriander-flecked sauce made creamy by almond and coconut, but the light slices of grilled spring chicken were a world away from the usual long-simmered, indeterminate poultry suspects you can dredge up down the Curry Mile.
Coriander does what is says on the packet. Not that they do packets! A little gem. The meal, with a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon came, in under £60.
Coriander, 279 Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton, Manchester (0161 881 7750).
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