One of the many bugbears I hold in restaurants is the generalisation that the food of India can be broken down to the same ten or so classics that define individual areas by small changes into the same onion sludge. Jalfrezi, a Bengal stir-fry of sorts is now achieved by chucking some onion and peppers into the curry sauce, whilst to make a Rogan Josh – a Persian dish hot with Kashmiri red chillies – you simply swap the Jalfrezi peppers for chunks of tomato. Korma, or qorma, was not intended by the Mughals to be to the go-to for the weak and pathetic, but a liquor-based gravy, whilst Vindaloo should probably be found in the arse-end of India given it’s end result, but is actually a Goan curry spiked with black vinegar. To simply say that two thousand miles of cuisine and history can be summed up with the same base sauce is frankly an insult. So when a restaurant tells me they have a speciality Madras curry, that promises the unique spicing of the Tamil region over the extra spoonful of raw chilli powder we are so used to, you can be sure as hell I am going to order it.

I do order it. It is superb. Tart with tamarind, kissed with a little anise and finished sharp with lemon. Yes, they have used that onion masala base, but that’s okay because there is enough attention to detail here to confirm that Blanc NRI is a place that understands the breadth of Indian cooking, and maybe enough to warrant them taking top spot for Birmingham on that Oh-So-Trustworthy review site, Tripadvisor.

Some forty minutes prior to this I’m entering the building where James Dahl used to be. I never liked James Dahl. Inside the decor hasn’t changed that much, but with one big difference; it is busy. Like heaving. Apparently one half of Birmingham’s third most pretentious restaurant remains, and even he hated the old restaurant. The new incarnation is supposed to showcase Indian food from an elevated position, which is fine if India didn’t look at its most beautiful from street level. The interior is stark white, the lighting so low it was allegedly used as a set location for the final season of Game of Thrones. Sophie arrives, we have a cocktail and order wine. The lightbulb above our table blows. I am blaming that for the poor pictures.

The starters aren’t up to the level of the mains. Chicken 65 is lacking in spice, tasting and looking a lot like a chicken nugget with peri peri mayo. It is supposed to have 65 spices; not six or five. And there’s the shami kebab, a little bit Rustler burger in make-up, stuffed with cheese for no apparent reason. Again short of spice, pleasant enough, but certainly not a shami kebab as I know it.

You know about that madras, so let me tell you that the rest of the curries are also very good. Really excellent paneer tikka labab, which is a Persian dish that shares similar footprints as a makhani, and a solid rendition of saag paneer that was ordered as a side but turns up as a main. Arguably as good as the madras is the lamb kadai kurchan, a dish that they are quick to tell about a story of the chef who wrote down his secret recipe of 37 spices before he “expired from COVID”. The recipe is in safe hands. The curry is fragrant and hot with chilli heat. The spices tempered, and the lamb soft. It has bags of attitude. I really like it. Go, skip starters, order this and the madras and you can see why they rank so high on TripAdvisor. Get a naan bread; they are excellent.



We leave with leftovers for the following lunch, stopping on the way out to chat to the owner. He’s lovely; passionate about raising the bar of Indian cooking in Birmingham, a sentiment I agree with. Think about it, the standard has dropped and you know it. Maybe because of complacency, more likely because the new generation of British Asians don’t want to follow in their father’s footsteps into the kitchen. Good on them for trying to do better. NRI stands for ‘Not Regular Indian’ by the way. I happen to prefer the cooking here when it straddles closer to that regular line.
7/10