With my liking of hot food, but my dislike of altered dishes, this is a dish I have largely avoided eating.
This is because it was actually a Portugese dish introduced to Goa years ago, of pork marinated in wine, and given a dose of chilli to make it suitable for the local palette before re-introducing it into the UK as just a very hot curry and even replacing the garlic cloves with potato chunks.
However, this past week I have dined out on it twice at two venues and really enjoyed the heat kick.
No problem with taking the heat orally at all, but sadly, yesterday I seem to have spent a whole 18 hours trying to digest the most recent one that I ate.
To be fair, it did say on the menu, "only for those of a strong constitution" but I had not taken into account my digestive tract, only my chilli threshold.

Ouch!(have you ever seen a walking , talking 10 stone beach ball on legs? Nah, you don`t want to)

Meanwhile, check out the restuarant review in the Guardian today, I also slagged that one off for the same reasons that they did. I was pleased I was not the only one.

Vindaloo,not one of my favourites.although given the lack of curry available here I'd happily eat 10 of them:P
What is your usual Indian restturant choice?

I love Indian food and have never eaten Vindaloo, but aren't all Indian dishes in UK Indian restaurants altered foods to some extent for our market, Mart? I hope I'm wrong. Let us know!

Firstly, I`m afraid you are right Anthony. It is becoming a very difficult challenge to find authentic Indian food.
As I mentioned in the first post, in most restuarants in the UK, Vindaloo simply means "hottest", as opposed to the delicate marinated pork dish that it originally was when it arrived in India from Portugal. Obviously the first difficulty was the use of wine in a recipe.
Apparently, the first ever Chicken Tikka Massala was created by an Anglo Indian chef, who made a quick cream and curry sauce to put over a tandoori chicken dish when a customer complained it was too dry, although nobody has ever claimed that it was in fact them.
"Madras" in the UK, and probably all over the world now, is known as the basic hot curry, but the name came from the spice ship era when it was discovered that exports of spice from India could be sold as "Madras Spice" for a good deal of money.

As for my favourite Indian restuarant choice, I have to say it is Mattur Paneer. This is a dish made from fresh cheese and peas and served in such a variety of ways, that I can never resist sampling it in as many places as possible, no two are ever the same and you get a genuine feel of how the cooks actually eat.
On many occasions the green peas are substituted for chick peas and on the most dismal of occasions, the paneer is substituted for melting chedder, making a dish , that surely has not been tried in the establishment.

I would say to anyone who is quite new to Indian food, even when it is suggested on the menu to try Korma ( a mild dish), if you are not use to the heat or a tad squemish to not do so.
This is allways a rather sweet and sometimes cloying meal and one that you really need to be in the mood for.
If in doubt, go for a Biriani, which will always without fail, give you a good stocky curry basic sauce with a colourful rice.

( and of course avoid any spicy food whereabouts you have seen a round the clock pre-prepared food delivery truck stopping)

For further reading and googling, I think if you search under "Red Fort Dorset", there is one of my reviews of a good home cooking Bangla_Deshi establishment.

Inspired by your post Mart, I created a Prawn Curry last night.

Into a cream and curry (with onions and butter and spices and chicken stock) sauce I placed the Prawns in bacon I'd bought (precooked) in Harrods (only for long enough to warm up the prawns - I hate anything overcooked) and ate them with a delicious Pommes Dauphinois (again bought at Harrods) and a wonderful, cleansing cucumber salad (once more from Harrods).

Very nice, quite mild, washed down with my Low Alcohol Cider from Waitrose (which Mart doesn't like but I adore).

The Lahore Kebab House in Umberston Street off the Commercial Road is legendary. I was introduced to it by a millionaire music industry man. I though he was having a laugh - lets just say the decor is basic - until I tasted the food.

It's been extended now and slightly re-vamped but it's still honest and a real cultural experience of the kind that is now so rare.

Have the lamb cutlets.

We both live in the west but regularly track across town for it.

I was just thinking whilst walking the dog, what a tremendous and successful foody joke we may have been left by the creation of the vindaloo.

The Portugese, did not make great wines for a long period and in doing so , added brandy to it and matured it again as Port to give it some extra maturity.
Therefore, did they stick a pork leg, that nobody knew what to do with in a vat of poor wine and call it vindaloo, pass it over to the Indians, who found it impracticle, who in turn added extra chilli and exported it over here?

I haven`t been to the Lahore Kebab House to the best of my knowledge Rusty, but there are many superb places that seem to fit the requirements nationally.
Notably,and another subject,in Birmingham the original Balti houses have very little in common in taste (and decor) with the average Balti dish that is becoming more common on the high street takeaway.
Don`t forget that the Balti, is technically the serving recepticle and really could have the same dish served in it from another part of the menu.
The key thing from the houses that emerged ten to fifteen years ago was the use of salt as a spice in the cooking, and of course the sometimes, even plastic garden furniture used for an excellent meal for a couple of quid.

And yet, and yet.... on a map of India I have, there is in fact a place, of course, called Baltistan.

Notably, no Vindalooville.

Well spotted about the Birmingham Balti houses.
I was one of the first white guys in sparkhill/sparkbrook to delve onto their tasty treats back in the 70s.
I even remember when they started to call in a balti in English,which just came from the slang for the wok they cooked it in.
Origionally they were just cheap cafes serving cheap food to the migrant workers here without their family.But soon grew into a national institution,albeit with nothing to do with the origional recipes.
It started as an oil and curry paste mix,with added main ingredient of choice.Now the oil has disappeared,and a variety of sauces have been added.
The nearest I've had to the origional Balti funnily enough was on the turkey Irag border at Sloppi.
The wok was flatter,less deep.Tender Halal Lamb mixed with local vegetables & spices was actually cooked in front of you,then served piping hot to the table.
The Kurds of course are an indo european people,with a much more interesting cuisine than the turks.
Curry,damn it,I'll have to go home soon...just for the food.