Pattaya's finest; at least nothing like this exists in France
If I had no right to expect to find a decent curry in France, the Middle East was surely in a different league. And so it has proved.
A couple of weeks or so from now, I will be heading back to Le Lavandou - via Middlesbrough as it happens...where else? - and, for all sorts of reasons, cannot wait to be there.
My home has been empty since last September, or at least I sincerely hope it has, and it will be marvellous to be back, sipping rosé on the terrace, looking out over Provençal rooftops to the hills of the Var and taking evening strolls along the seafront.
What I will not find, of course, is an Indian meal worth eating. The goal I set myself three years ago, to find the French equivalent of an ordinarily good, English suburban tandoori, was always doomed to failure.
But if you want to know a little more about how well my quest travelled, as it were, have a look at what I have written in today's edition of The National.
What is more, you can then follow a link and read it again - and lots more about food - at an appetising site, new to my acquaintance, called Cold Mud.
No corruption, incidentally, is involved in my hearty recommendation of the Tandoori Corner, the quietly impressive restaurant I discovered soon after my arrival in Abu Dhabi.
Until someone alerts them to my article, the management and staff will remain unaware of my endorsement, even though the word-of-mouth version has already boosted its trade enormously as colleagues have taken to ordering vast quantities of takeaway and delivered meals.
Our newsdesk has even instituted Curry Thursday as a welcome change from the delicious but rather heavy Lebanese meals, bland pizza and gooey sandwich wraps that stream in here during the rest of the week.
So how will I get by in France, deprived of my tandoori fix? Oh, I suppose I'll make do. The odd plateau de fruits de mer, barbecued tuna, swordfish, tapenade and other delicacies from the marché provençal........and who knows what delights await me when I attend my nephew's wedding in Boro?
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