RESTAURANTS Deborah Ross
GOOD Christmas? Fine; thanks for asking. Spent most of it in north Wales at my parents-in-law. Not much to do in north Wales. Bit boring, actually. Sometimes I had to shake my watch, just to check it was still going. No, not much to do, apart from watching crap telly, reading and rereading my mother-in-law's double Christmas/New Year issue of Woman's Weekly and thinking that I should start on a detox diet but finding it hard to wean myself off the But-tax diet, which involves lots and lots of Cadbury's Roses before breakfast, and then lots and lots afterwards and then, bugger it, might as well finish the box now and open the Miniature Heroes, This is a very good diet, does what it says on the can. Everything goes straight — whoosh! — to the but-tox without any shilly-shallying or messing about. I now look like Brian Blessed from behind. More scarily, I might even look quite like him from the front. Still, no matter. New Year, New You! Add Style with House Plants! Is it Wrong to Love At 85? Knit a Super Sweater for Him. Narrow Stairs? The New Stairlifts from Stannah are the Slimmest Ever! (Thora Hird not included in this offer. Support stockings models' own.) See, I read the double issue of Woman's Weekly right through to the ads at the back. I wouldn't mind a stairlift, I must say. Can you get them in wicker? Can you get them for narrow stairs but Blessed-wide but-tax?
Now where were we? (Honestly, have you ever met a better candidate for 'Use It or Lose It! Tricks to Boost Your Memory!'?) Ali, yes, in Wales, until it was time to come home again, back to London, where I was happily looking forward to turning 'Seasonal Leftovers into Meals in Their Own Right' and sending off for the sort of 'beautiful floral tapestry that will brighten any home in time for spring'. However, on our way we got diverted by this great, big, glowing Indian restaurant, Khazana, on the A483 Ruabon bypass, which is just outside Wrexham, before you hit the AS and then M54. It's where the Little Chef used to be. Anyway, I'm a little bit peckish, having not had a single thing to eat for at least four minutes, and demand we stop. 'Oh, come on, says my partner. 'We've only just set off. Let's get further on, at least.' Honestly, he just doesn't understand the rigorous demands of serious, determined, full-scale but-toxing. I wish he was more like Joel in the bestselling author Christina Jones's light-hearted romantic serial, Pastures New. He and Stephanie get caught in the rain and he kisses her even though her mascara has all run, and then he dries her off with a big warm towel. Joel would understand. Joel would not only offer me a segment of Terry's Chocolate Orange, he'd also give the whole thing that initial, segment-loos ening thump on a hard surface. He's very manly, Joel.
In the end I win the day, and we do stop. I win the day because I argue that if we don't stop here we'll have to stop at a motorway services later on, and who in their right mind wants to do that? (Even but-toxers have their standards.) So, in we go. It's an odd sort of place. Capacious, ferociously lit, quite Little Chef-ish if it weren't for the Indian etchings and red, plush chairs. 'Have you booked?' the waiter asks, even though it's only just gone 6 p.m. and the place is empty. 'No,' we confess. That's OK,' he says, leading us to a table on the far side. I think he's glimpsed the but-tox. I think he knows that the bill won't be measly.
We settle at our table where I wonder how a nice Indian family ends up outside Wrexham. My partner says that this is an appallingly racist thing to ask. Why shouldn't a nice Indian family end up just outside Wrexham? Because, I say, it's hardly a throbbing, multicultural place, is it? Did you ever go to school with any black or Asian kids? 'No.' Are there any black or Asian kids in your village today? 'No.' Was I or was I not the first Jew your mother had ever met? 'Yes.' Did she have to lie down for the afternoon when I told her Jews differ from Christians because they don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah? 'Yes.' If we got caught in the rain and my mascara ran, would you kiss me and then dry me in a big warm towel? 'Probably not.' Knit a Super Sweater for Him? Not bloody likely.
As it happens, the owner, Gulab Ali, is in tonight. He is elegant, dapper, dressed in black. How, I ask him, did you end up just outside Wrexham? He says that he first came to Wrexham. from Stoke Newington, in 1986 when he was offered a partnership in an Indian restaurant in the town. It was, he says, quite a change swapping north London for north Wales. Lonely? 'Very! But we have built up quite a community now.' He went on to own an Indian in Wrexham and another in Chirk before selling both to open Khazana, It is doing well. 'We're fully booked for New Year's Eve!' I think it's quite something that people book where a Little Chef used to be.
We order. I go for Persian kebab special (fillets of chicken lightly marinated in herbs and spices, onion, garlic and ginger, and served on a skewer) while my partner goes for garlic chicken and our son for lamb jalfrezi, I ask if it's possible to do a mild version of the lamb jalfrezi. Apparently, the test of a good Indian restaurant is to ask if a hot dish can be made milder. Why? Because it shows that each dish is made to order, rather than simply being covered in sauce from a single saucepan of multi-use slop. 'No problem,' says the waiter.
As we wait for our food, the place begins to fill up quickly. However, the Welsh not being exactly gourmets, they do seem a very chicken-tikka-masala-with-chips kind of crowd. I ask if Mr Ali minds serving chips with everything. 'Not at all,he replies happily. 'Once a customer walks though the door he can have anything he likes, so long as he pays for it. Why should I mind serving chips at £1 .50 a portion?' That's the spirit.
Our own food is good. Very good. Spicy and flavoursome, served efficiently and not overpriced. (Our final bill came to less than £40.) I'm not sure about our son's pudding, though. He ordered banana fritters, which were a frightening nuclear red. Still, never mind. I think it's a brilliant idea, opening an Indian near the motorway. We will be back. Although not, I hope, before I've ordered the Oriental Collection of Animal Teapots. Reply within 14 days to receive your first model, 'The Elephant', for £12.95 plus the second model, 'The Duck', absolutely FREE! Yippee!
Khazana, A483 Ruabon bypass, Wrexham. Tel: 01978 824440/822300. The But-tox Diet by Deborah Ross has yet to be published but if, in the meantime, you keep at the Roses and Miniature Heroes and Chocolate Oranges, you'll be heading very much in the right direction. Toodle-pip.
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