The debate as to which of Birmingham’s hundreds of Indian restaurants serves up the city’s best balti has raged for years. But the debate would appear to have been settled after chef Mohammed Abdul Basid’s century old family recipe helped his eaterie become home to the city’s first official balti dish. Basid works at the Grameen Khana restaurant in the Sparkbrook district of Birmingham. The restaurant, which literally means “village feast”, will certainly be providing many a feast now that it can proudly market itself as the definitive purveyors of the balti.

The Grameen was only opened two years ago. As owner Mosiwar Hussain explains: “My family has a number of restaurants and I had been looking for my own place for some time. The award is absolutely down to the chef but we also feel we have created a great atmosphere and general ambience at the restaurant too.”

Grameen specialises in Bangladeshi food. Proof of its popularity is that the restaurant is as busy with locals as it is with visitors from much further afield. “We have a really mixed clientele,” adds Hussain. “At the beginning of the week we will have mostly Asian customers while at weekends we will tend to draw people in from further across the city. I even have regular customers from London who will come here especially when they are in Birmingham.”

So, what exactly is in the award-winning balti? Hussain refuses to be drawn. “It’s top secret, so much so that although l know some of the basics that go into the dish even l don’t know the exact ingredients!”

Kindly reproduced with permission of Marketing Birmingham.