If Bromley Bland, the 50-year-old piano dealer, had kept his mouth shut between mouthfuls of delicious curry, there would never have been any trouble.....
What he said, quite loudly, in the Taj Mahal restaurant, you find down a Truro, Cornwall, back alley, was that he enjoyed the Bangladeshi family cooking so much he was going to have their curry dishes flown out to Australia in batches of 10. At $873 a time for the 19,308km journey by Jumbo. And he meant it.
But restaurant walls have ears; and the cheery Mr. Bland’s vow reached the newsroom of the local newspaper, the story quickly being flashed around the world in advance of his Sydney arrival.
‘I’ll tell you what happened then,’ said the indignant businessman who imports Chinese pianos into England, exports Steinways to Japan, and sells Japanese Yamahas world-wide -- never with any trouble. ‘We were a party of four; my wife, Margaret and I; and an English lord and his wife who were travelling with us.
‘We arrived at the Sydney Airport Customs Hall about 6 AM and headed for the Green Exit because we had nothing to declare. All of a sudden we were pulled to one side and asked to sit down. A team of Customs and Quarantine officers then came over and asked us who had packed our bags? They said they were going to search every one and asked us again did we have anything to declare? We said we did not.
‘They then searched every bit of clothing, the linings of the suitcases, the linings of handbags and even little credit-card wallets. They x-rayed all the pipings of bags and cases. Then, when they started asking us very personal questions, and I hadn’t even been given a glass of water which I’d asked for, I told them to stuff off. This had gone on for about two hours and I thought they must have been looking for drugs. When they tried to split us up I warned the others not to leave. I was worried something might be planted.
‘When it was eventually over, the Quarantine guy in charge came across and said: "I would like to tell you why we have searched so thoroughly. We thought you might be illegally bringing curries into Australia.."’
Said Mr. Bland: ‘We didn’t of course, have any curries with us. We know that is illegal and you need an import licence. A company is arranging for me to have my meals vacuum-packed from the Taj Mahal and flown into Sydney so all I need to do is pop them into a pan with a bit of oil.’ At such a huge expense? ‘Well, I can afford it and I enjoy the freshness of their cooking. I select the spices for them in London for quality and take them down to Cornwall. So I know what I’m eating.’
Mr. Bland first got the taste for blazing hot curries in Birmingham more than 30 years ago. He has never been to the source of it all, India. But in Wolverhampton, where he grew up, he got to know Bangladeshi families who emigrated in the 60s, and patronised the restaurants they opened. ‘I got this fantastic liking for their food and I can’t be without it.’
When he’s back in Truro, Mr. Bland settles at his special table in the 70-seat Taj, on the Truro River, on average five times a week. It is a personal table - at which nobody else can sit. The Daily Mail and another newspaper are there, folded, to await him. He does not have to order. The chef ("a fifth generation expert who started at three years old in the kitchen") sends out a Madras or a Vindaloo. There is a jug of water by his elbow, because he doesn’t drink alcohol, and coffee to follow.
‘I have eaten Australian curries over the years,’ says Mr. Bland who has a house in Sydney’s Bondi Beach, ‘and they are nothing like the Taj. I am not knocking anybody, but I went to a restaurant near the hotel I stayed at on the New South Wales coast and had one the other night and it was uneatable. I have even tried to persuade the Taj Mahal chef to fly out and cook for me while I am here, because I can afford it. But he won’t leave his family behind. So I’ve arranged that his meals be packed and perfectly sealed in vacuum containers so they’ll keep for months.’
At $90 a dish, landed in Sydney, he believes he will be eating the world’s best curries "quite reasonably".
‘All I have to do is heat them up and then’ (by now he is in another world), ‘just enjoy them. The dishes I don’t eat immediately, will keep for months in the freezer.’ There may of course be some fine curry restaurants in Australia, and Bromley means to try them all. But he already misses the Taj...
