Lewes Spice

Every year or so I get a vindaloo in my head, and I can’t get it out of there until I go and eat one. I usually realise this is a mistake somewhere between the first bite and the desperate gulp of fire-fighting beer that follows it. But I’m always back for more. It’s like a purgation, a cleaning out. Also, my damn cold has got into my sinuses, and I figure it might act as a decongestant, a culinary version of the Sudafed tablets I’m taking. So I choose Lewes Spice, the simplest, most Brick Lane-ish, of the three Indian restaurants in town. I go with two friends, both blokes.

It’s a fight to get my fair share of poppadoms, which are snaffled down so quickly we’ve got another round in front of us in minutes. Our talk is blokish: sex and drugs and property. The vindaloo arrives. I pile some on my plate with rice. A cucumber raita lies in wait, like a fire engine near a runway for an emergency landing. The other two look at me as I take my first bite. The taste is… rather mild actually. Pleasant. The curries I make are hotter. I don’t sweat, or gulp beer, or dread the next bite. I’m rather disappointed. I clean my plate (it’s delicious, by the way) and mop the last of the juice up with a bit of nan bread. The raita remains untouched, and I comment on this. “You should have had a phaal,” says one of the blokes, and I realise he’s right. Next time. AL