Today’s curry review marks the 3rd Anniversary for the website. For those of you who are just joining us, here is a nominal top 10 list of the best (or worst) moments from the last 3 years:

10) An epic MapQuest journey to each quadrant of the city

9) “Are you Nasim?” “No. Nasim is my wife.”

8) 1 unconfirmed food poisoning

7) Eating rice out of Ziplock bag (and again!)

6) A kidnapping and ransom

5) Two curry parties (Matt’s Housewarming and Ren&Matt’s 30th)

4) Dining in a Bathroom

3) Dining in a Laundromat

2) Becoming Fluent in Punjabi

1) Eating with the Cabbies at the Airport

There you go. You should now all be up to speed. Of course none of those reviews would be possible without the aid of our excellent web-mistress. She works diligently long hours to get all the reviews up for you people to read. Maybe one day we’ll figure out how to pay her (look out for dodgycurry.ca apparel, including thongs, coming soon).  You’ll also note that in the last year we’ve shortened our web address to something much simpler (again, on her advice). Thanks again Chelsea!

But on to the business at hand, today’s review! We had originally planned on going to Bharat Indian Restaurant. When I told Ren this, he reminded me that our website is about Indian food, not Kazakhstani. After a 7 minute argument about the differences between “Bharat” and “Borat”, we had things sorted out. However, when we arrived downtown, we found that Bharat was closed and is soon to become a Starbucks. Damn Corporations. First my nursing home job, then my Indian food. Grrr!  (matt)

At first I thought Kazakh cuisine would be pretty good.  I've had food from too of the other 'Stans and thought they were.... Afghani and Pakistani both had lots of familiar touches even if the names are different.  You can't trick me with your “samBosa's” you kooky Afghanis.  However I took the time to read this wikipedia article  and I think I've consumed as much boiled sheep's head as I'm ever going to. I'm glad matty educated me to my mistake.  Unfortunately it's too bad when you take the time to find a place in downtown Calgary and it's no longer there.  After using all our change to plug a parking meter we weren't going home without a curry.  (ren)

Luckily, we had a backup plan. Not far from Bharat’s final resting spot, is Gulf Canada Square. I remembered that the owners of Moti Mahal had one of their Copper Chimney restaurants in Gulf Canada Square.  Ren was able to deftly maneuver us out of the pouring rain and through numerous parkades and PLUS-15s, all the time passing throngs of business types, until we reached our destination; the Food Court at GCS. (matt)

Since we were actually to the south of downtown I knew the easiest way to get to Gulf Canada Square was to go through the parkade on 10th ave.  This knowledge was gained over 20 years ago when my dad used to take us to his work for christmas parties and the like.  Bizarrely using 20-year-old memories proved to be more accurate than the yellow pages because the parkade is still there while Bharat was not.  (ren)

The Copper Chimney sat in the middle of the food court and was significantly less busy than its neighbor, Wendy’s. An ominous sign perhaps.  I’ve never thought Indian food, outside of maybe samosas, as being amendable to the food court environment. There is something instinctively wrong about that concept. Almost by definition, Indian food is anything but FAST FOOD. That being said, I tried to keep an open mind and vowed not to cringe as I surveyed the options under heat lamps. (matt)

Personally I like the idea of curry as fast food.  It's not ideal, but it can be prepared in large batches and since it's sauce based it doesn't dry out under the heat lamps like so many cheeseburgers.  I certainly wouldn't appreciate too much indian that way....but I'd take it over the crap at the foothills cafeteria any day.  (ren)

I went with Butter Chicken and Dhal with Naan and a Samosa. Ren had the Butter Chicken , Beef curry with Rice and a Samosa. We opted against lassis, instead deciding on a chocolate milk and the vicariously-named Orangina. (matt)

I don't really understand how to pronounce Orangina.  Is it supposed to sound like the capital of Saskatchewan....or ...er.... the proper name for....er.... ah..... snatch?  I'm not sure.  Therefore it was I who ordered the chocolate milk.  They did not have Vico.  Sorry Sask peeps.  Looking around the food-court, copper chimney's direct competitors were, a chinese place, a pasta place, korean bbq, wendys and extreme pita and something called Roasty's....(WTF?).  Interesting that the food court at a large downtown office building is mostly lacking the franchise uniformity of the suburban malls.  However as matt mentioned the Wendy's seemed to be the busiest business in the joint.  (ren)

We sat looking out on downtown and the people who work there.  Neither of us really belonged. We stood out amongst the suits, in our jeans and classic Adidas sneakers. Not unlike the office buildings that surrounded us, our curries were bland and unflavourable. While the naan was fresh and the rice was satisfactory, we just weren’t into our food. The samosa might be the one saving grace to the Copper Chimney but in our opinions, if you work in Gulf Canada Square, you’re better off eating at Wendy’s. After all, “Quality is their Recipe”.   (matt)

Not much to add really.... you know you're not having a good day when the beef curry is the high point.  I generally despise beef curry, but ordered it to avoid duplicating everything on matt's plate.  It had a bit of flavour but as always the beef taste kicks the crap out of any spice you try to embellish it with.  Matt got the last veg samosa and his might have been the saving grace, but I got a beef one and it was dry as a bone.  The butter chicken avoided the common problem of having too much tomato flavour.  Unfortunately it also avoided the common goal of having any flavour.  Also hurting their score was the fact that I had indigestion for about 6 hours after the meal.  That is just not right.  (ren)

We score this place a 5/10 and banish it to the Black Hole of Calcutta.

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