2007-06-25 - 12:20 p.m.

Got a menu through the door today. Didn't think that Mondays could be useful after all... It's for some place called 'Highland Tandoori' which should tell you all you need to know about it, but it bears further horrors and deserves closer scrutiny. At the top of the pamphlet are the conjoined flags of Scotland and India, letting you know that we might be in for a thrilling 'fusion' of Scotch and Indian food. Haggis pakoras, maybe? Deep fried prawn vindaloo mince? Iain Banks hit upon this in his novel 'Whit' - one of his better efforts. He told the story of two shipwrecked Indian women landing on a remote Scottish island and introducing Asian spice to the deep-fried stodge of my homeland. It was funny, but in a witty writerly way, rather than the sheer ludicrous depth-charge of this menu. This brochure is nothing if not diverse. Underneath the cartoon of an orange-bearded bagpiper, the hungry victim is promised not just 'Curries' but also 'Pizzas - Kebabs - Burgers' and, should that not incite sufficient gastronomic frenzy, 'Baked potatoes'. Talk about running the gamut from A to B.

The indecisive are given various 'Set Meal' options that, curiously, exclude king prawns. Stingy cunts. So far so plebby, but then we get to the Pandora-like 'Munchie Box'. For £5.50 the self-hating customer can feast upon 'Donner, Chips, Salad, Sauce & Chicken Pakora, Veg Pakora & Can of Juice'. At what point in your life do you feel the need to phone up a place like 'Highland Tandoori' and ask for a 'munchie box'? How drunk would you have to be? How could you say it without either laughing or self-harming? Can a grown man say the words 'Can I have a munchie box, please?' and not immediately want to either put on a piss-stained dress or hang himself? It gets worse. After ‘Appetisers’ (yeah, right) ‘Rice,’ ‘Tandoori Nan Bread,’ and ‘Breads’ (which for some reason I read as ‘Breasts’) comes… ‘Baked Potatoes’! At last, after all that foreign muck comes something down to earth that I can actually eat. So, what can one choose to flood his spud with? How about ‘Cheese and pineapple’? Or, for the phony-tough and crazy-brave there’s the prospect of, and I’m not making this up, ‘Prawn Cocktail’. I’m all for consumer choice, but whichever nutter decided that there should be a prawn cocktail baked potato needs to be hung, drawn and quartered. Preferably by Gordon Ramsey and Anthony Bourdain.

After the earthy delights of the tuber, the menu takes a turn for the surreal. First, there’s the ‘Special Dishes’ which include not only ‘68. Special Curry (‘mixture of meat, chicken, prawns and mushrooms’) but also ’69. Chef’s Special Curry (‘With mango, pineapple and cream’. Do I really need to say anything here? But, there’s more! Should one not feel spoiled enough by the dazzling array of daring delicacies by now, there’s ‘Very Special Dishes’. These include ‘Chicken Tikka Masala’, so I suspect they might not so much be pulling the wool over our eyes as attempting to rape us with a dead sheep. ‘Our Very Special Dishes DO NOT include rice or chips’ Yeah? Well just how very special can they be, then? Nothing says ‘very special’ to me like some chips on the side. Right at the bottom of the menu in needy capital letters we are promised that ‘ANY DISH NOT ON OUR MENU CAN BE MADE ON REQUEST’. Any dish? Really? I feel a law-suit coming on. Number 106 (How do they cope?!) boasts a ‘unique mild taste’. The ‘Mazedar’ is cooked in ‘Worchestershire sauce and topped with cheese’. I think that’s as about as authentic as it gets. That’s how everyone in India cooks. That’s when they’re not treating themselves to ‘Omelettes,’ and ‘Sundries’. Man, I could go for some Sundries just now. How lucky I am to live in town with such a vibrant and witty restaurant scene.

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