Masala Mantra: Aloo and Goodbye

Masala Mantra: Aloo and Goodbye

Tourists from the four corners of the planet queue to marvel at the Americana provided at the Hard Rock Cafe at the swish end of Piccadilly. Its foundational promise to ‘Love All, Serve All’ appears to have been appropriated as Masala Mantra’s supreme mission statement. So the OCC was restlessly expectant. The restaurant’s decorative combination of Mughal crafts, Andalus tiling, and Siamese promotional posters reflects their willingness to openly embrace an extraordinarily wide range of cultural influences. Cold corona senor ?  Thai or Indian curries? Love All, Serve All.

Pre-dinner drinks were held at the Shed. The bar was surprisingly warm and welcoming despite the paucity of punters. One recently elected member commiserated the demise of a business venture by inviting arrivals to pints of plain, an act of human kindness that will linger long in the heart.

Walking the cactus land of ‘Foreigner Street’ towards the venue revealed the shattered dream of a long-abandoned folly: a fully glazed promontory leaning into the pedestrianized broken bones of foreign-invested hospitality. We looked up to gaze at the signage: Masala Mantra. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.

The restaurant ownership cruelly withheld heating from the premises but a solid table for sixteen had been set out full four-square. The chilled gentlemen of the OCC are made of sterner stuff and were fizzing with excitement, expecting a rampant rumbustious evening to rival the raucous revelry of a Wardroom Trafalgar Night.

The table was soon awash with conversation, Kingfisher and pints of Stella. The waiters were attentive and keenly vigilant, alert to the need to keep everyman’s glassware brimful with fresh lager. Four mains and four starters were sent to each of the four corners of the table and all were sadly disappointing: the cauliflower was lean, dry and shrivelled, a sad limpen failure compared to the splendorous Aloo Gobi dished up at other curry joints that the venerable gentlemen electors of the OCC routinely decline to re-visit.

The OCC’s distinguished eminences were  treated to a fine MacCallan kindly provided by a clubman with exemplary taste. The outstanding Shot Master made excellent use of his Mexican connexions to offer a superlative Mezcal, followed by a delicious Ouzo-like distillation from South of the Border. Members left and right purred with satisfaction as the carefully curated liquids hit the spot. Understated quality is the unspoken byword of the man who serves selflessly as the club’s spirit sommelier.

The evening’s cheque records 22 portions of garlic naan and poppadoms delivered to the table. The club chutneys displayed remarkable redemptive powers to elevate members’ sensory experiences into condiment perfection. Clubmen cheerfully squabbled over personal preferences: mango confections, lovingly layered on cool crisp poppadoms versus carroty contrivances scooped up in the intimate folds of warm, buttery garlic naan. The debate still rages though the humble palates of the OCC are happy to delegate culinary connoisseurship to the instinctual brilliance of the Chutney Master. Along with the Vice Chairman, he was truly resplendent in club blazer, badge and tie. The two appeared to accept a preordained challenge and set about bettering each other on minor points of procedural order and as the Geiger count rose the Chairman sagely decided to move on to more pressing club matters. In the quiet wake of these entanglements a few lags in the cheap seats speculated their verbals were nothing less than a sly dry run for Chairmanship hustings expected to take place once our dear widely admired incumbent moves to the Gulf to reap his portion of hydrocarbon riches.

The evening reached unimaginable heights when the imperious Punisher revealed a shaft of genius in gifting a new parlour game to the OCC. Our beloved Chairman and Vice Chairman were nominated contestants and the fun began. It’s difficult to overstate the dramatic majesty of Chilli in a Box. Select which box the Chilli is not in. Lose. Chew the Chilli twice. Spit Chilli back into box. As the red part-gnarled detritus landed back in the box from whence it came, astonished members realized they were experiencing a truly momentous moment in the life of the club.

Two applicants and a country cousin attended and contributed generously to the evening’s conviviality. We hope to see them again. There were other highlights. One member grandly announced to the congregation he needed ‘meat’, then scavenged the tepid remnants of tureens for scraps of chicken as watchful clubhands stretched their Stella-soaked eyes in disbelief. Later, to the delight of a small cackle of kindred curs, one of our fabled brethren was lovingly christened ‘Baldrick’ by a warm-hearted fraternal other for his thoughtful, weighty and dignified contributions to the club’s proceedings. These two moments immediately announced themselves as sacred.

And how did the venue score? Service and care, decent 7’s. Well done boys, you kept pumping out lager and naan so we could focus on enjoying the eve. Food just about managed a flat 6 and deserves little further comment. Atmosphere was mid-6’s: the patron’s decorative choices, parsimonious approach to utility costs and a dearth of diners did for the vibe. Despite this, the nomads of the OCC never fail to make the ordinary extraordinary and by the end the evening had committed many marvellous reminiscences to the memory Chalet. The arrival of the Chairman’s cab to convey him to the airport served as coda for the meet and, upon sighting the cheque, all agreed the evening was great value for money given the quantities of food and grog provided.

The well oiled gentlemen of the OCC tumbled joyously into the winterous air and huddled like champions league winning footballers for the customary team photo with the willing waitstaff. Snap, and they were off into another soft, sodden Shanghai night.

Memories, yes. A return, unlikely. OCC.