'It's about the customers' for curry award winner

At the end of the day, to be an outstanding curry restaurant "it's all down to customers", as far as a beaming Taj Ahmed is concerned.

He is smiling as his place, the Basmati Restaurant in Great Barr, in the West Midlands, was named the outstanding restaurant of the year at the English Curry Awards this week.

Their Bangladeshi/Indian food was recognised by judges not only for what they serve up, but their charity work and plenty of activity with local football clubs.

But for Ahmed, it was the people eating their food who mattered: "Our [customers] recommended us as one of the best restaurants they have experienced.

"It's all down to customers - the feedback, customers' vote, customers' opinions... along with everything else."

The awards celebrated the best of the country's chefs, restaurants and takeaways and gave out awards at the event in Wolverhampton.

"All the people from different [parts] of the country, they came together... everyone [was] together sharing their experiences," Ahmed added.

Also among the winners was Jameel Ali, from Sheldon's Titash Restaurant, which won the Best of Birmingham category and afterwards said it was "an incredible feeling".

"Birmingham has such a fantastic curry scene and so many great restaurants, so to be recognised as best in Birmingham was a huge honour for us," he smiled.

Asked to name the Coventry Road venue's best dish, Ali said it had a few signature ones, with one of them probably being "the railway lamb".

"It's a lamb and potato curry made in the authentic way that used to be made in the 80s, when the working men would go on the railway," he described.

"So their wives would cook 'em [a] very authentic home-style lamb and potato curry."

Birmingham has long-been considered the birthplace of the balti - a fusion dish popularised in the 1980s and 1990s by the city's Pakistani community.

But some 50 years before that, in the 1940s, it was settlers from Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, that introduced residents to their native dishes, by cooking milder versions of curry to suit British taste buds.

The national award winners included:

• Nepalese Restaurant of the Year - Avatar Dining (Market Harborough)
• Bangladeshi Restaurant of the Year - Jaflong Indian and Bangladeshi (Ripon)
• South Indian Restaurant of the Year - Kayal Restaurant (Leicester)
• Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant of the Year - Chai Paani (Leicester)
• Street Food Restaurant of the Year - Keep Chaating Indian Vegetarian Restaurant (London)
• Kitchen of the Year - Jamun (Brighton)
• Best Takeaway of the Year - Moonlight Tandoori (Hull)
• Takeaway & Home Delivery of the Year - Nawaab King of Spice (Sunderland)
• Chef of the Year - Deshi Spice (Bedford)
• Outstanding Restaurant of the Year - Basmati Restaurant (Birmingham)
• New Business of the Year - OMNOM (Birmingham)
• Curry Expert of the Year - Spice Lounge (Camberley)
• Customer Service of the Year - Syhiba Restaurant (Wakefield)
• Curry Takeaway of the Year - Baabzi (Warwick)
• Lifetime Achievement of the Year - Vakas Balti (Halesowen)

Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.