The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Dundee is hot curry capital of Scotland
The people of Dundee love a curry and they love them hot – that’s official! Nationwide research has revealed a heat map of the UK, with folk from the City of Discovery emerging as fourth top in the country for tucking into the hottest curries.
In fact, Dundee was the only town or city in Scotland to make the UK’s top 10, with a staggering 27% of people in the city stating they regularly devour eye-watering curries such as vindaloos, compared to a national average of just 16%.
Top of the list following a study involving 5,000 Brits was Middlesbrough, with 30% of residents in the north-east of England town saying they loved a hot curry.
Blackpool came second with 29% admitting they always choose a vindaloo, or something hotter.
And in third place was Canterbury, where 28% enjoy the tongue-tingling delights of a fiery dish.
The poll was carried out by curry kit company Boom Kitchen.
When it came to mild dishes, Gloucester was the “coolest”, followed by Wolverhampton and Bournemouth.
And it seems that the results of the national research are borne out by evidence in the city’s restaurants.
Hot curries are extremely popular at the longestablished Bombay Joe’s in Gray Street, Broughty Ferry.
Paul Chima, owner of the popular restaurant for the last 30 years, said: “A tikka masala and a garam masala, which is spicy, are our most popular curries, but a lot of people will now go for the tandoori option which is cooked on the charcoal grill.
“However, vindaloo and madras curries are still extremely popular. The older curries and hotter curries are still popular particularly in the winter.
“It could be true that people in Dundee enjoy the hot curries, certainly in my experience they enjoy eating spicy food.”
James Doel, co- founder of Boom Kitchen, said: “Super-hot curries used to be for the hardcore, but they are actually now just as popular as milder dishes.”
The study also found that while almost half (46%) of us claim to be cooking more curries from scratch, 18% of Brits are buying more takeaway curries than ever before,
And more than a fifth have expanded their recipe repertoire over lockdown to include curry dishes.