We heard that a new take-out place had opened up across from MacMahon Stadium.  Needless to say, we were very excited about this. Not only would this be handy pre/post Rider games, it would also serve as a second food option for the next time we decided to drink at the Alcove. (If anyone is looking to start a Dodgy Pub website, I think the Alcove should be your first stop. Where else can you get 2 dollar drinks in this town AND witness a murder in the adjacent hotel? I guess maybe the Cecil might also qualify.)  As an added bonus, this area is physically close to both of my work places and would offer an excuse to eat real food (as opposed to bad hospital sandwiches). (matt)

You know your curry addiction is out of hand when your mother starts giving you tips for new curry joints that she's seen around town.  Thanks mom!!!  But hey...its relatively close to home....so it seemed like a great place to check out sooner rather than later.  (ren)

We didn’t even really know what this place was called but Ren asked me to bring take-out over to his house while we worked out our strategy for winning Euro2008 tickets. When I say winning, I actually mean winning the opportunity to potentially buy tickets in a worldwide lotto. (ie. We have no hope in hell.) (matt)

In a way its like “winning” on ebay.  What the hell have you won....really....its still gonna cost you a whole bunch of money after the fact.  Especially if they ship it UPS those bastards. .... I guess I should be nice to UPS since matt and I may have to mail ourselves to europe in matching boxes after we pay for the match tickets. (ren)

I pulled up to find that the owners were at worst, marketing geniuses. The name of their restaurant is actually a website address. Greenchili.ca. And, as an added bonus, they weren’t even from Western Samoa! I phoned Ren with the restaurant name who promptly reviewed the menu from the safety of his home office. (matt)

I dunno if I'm a big fan of the real-world item being named after an internet site. Like the album J-Tull.com by Jethro Tull. In greenchili.ca 's favour at least their website works....most of the web pages listed on the menus and business cards of the local curry joints seem to actually send you to one of those horrible domain-squatting agencies.  While waiting for the food I went looking for other snazzy websites, finally stumbling on http://www.therapistfinder.com/ .  Unfortunately this site is not actually a Where's Waldo parody starring Kobe Bryant but something totally different.  (ren)

I walked in and ordered for the two of us. Their menu said they had been serving Alberta for nearly 10 years. I thought this was bizarre since they had only been open 4 weeks. Perhaps they were using the term “service” loosely. For all I knew, they may have been sentenced to 10 years of community  “service” by a judge for making a bad curry. In another bizarre menu twist, they made odd use of a pricing chart comparing Greenchili.ca to “Other Restaurants”. Which other restaurants? We have no idea. Brand X curry house. I guess that’s scientific enough, although we are concerned about the statistical power of the study.   (matt)

On average their prices appear to be $4 less than other restaurants...which I guess is pretty good for the NW.   I think they may be comparing to Namskar  which is fairly expensive, but really good.  Of course they could also be comparing to The Curry House  on centre street....which was very expensive and craptastic.  I really don't care how much I pay within reason as long as the food is good.  (ren) 

As it turns out, according to the owner, he is a managing partner of our favorite Indian restaurant in Calgary, Chutney.  He has also brought Chutney’s chef (who I got to meet) over to get things going at Greenchili.ca This story was contradicted by the convenience store clerk from 2 doors down, who states the owner is now longer connected with Chutney. This leads me to believe he may have be ousted from the restaurant in a vicious Indian food coup-d'état. It’s a little known fact that the fall of most communist states can be directly linked back to bad Korma. (matt)

While waiting for matt to arrive I continued my search of quality websites.  This time it took me to http://www.penisland.net/ .  I was thinking matt and I could use fancy “Dodgy Curry” pens and Pen Island is the place to go for all your custom pen needs.  (ren)

I sat in my car and read the Calgary Sun while my Chicken Balti was being prepared. I only read the Sun because it’s easier to turn the book shaped pages rather than fighting with the traditional Herald shaped paper. Other then that, I hate it.  It makes me feel like a redneck. A curry redneck, but a redneck nonetheless. Twenty minutes later, our meals had been bagged up and I was off to Ren’s in Tuscany. (matt)

Ok...enough screwing around with silly webpages...where's my curry (ren)

When we opened the package, we were annoyed to find that they had forgotten to include Ren’s second entry/appetizer, the butter chicken.  Sure, he still had his mysterious dish we had never heard of (Till Mill Zhingha – not to be confused with the Thai beer, Singha OR the process of making flour) but he loves butter chicken. He looked like his dog ran away. She hadn’t of course, since she was sleeping in her crate next to the table, but Ren was still perturbed to say the least. (matt)

Boo!!! Where's my curry?....Matty...call the website and make them bring me a curry.  (ren)

As such, I remedied the situation by calling to complain. I’m not into name dropping but when I told the owner that I was from Dodgy Curry, he immediately volunteered to have not one, but two butter chickens couriered out to us in Tuscany. Impressive. I’ll have remember to do that more often.  (matt)

While we waited for the butter chicken delivery we started in on the food we did have.  The Till Mill Zhingha was pretty neat.  It is a shrimp dish in a “tangy” sauce.  The sauce was sweet with a bit of heat and it came with some free naan.  Possible downside, the naan was actually placed into the styrofoam container with the sauce so it was kinda soggy and messy.  However as it turned out this was actually a plus,  as the naan that was not saturated with curry was a bit tough, and/or crispy. The shrimp appeared to be those little baby ones you get pre-cooked in the giant bag at safeway....rather than monster tiger prawns but this seemed good to me cause I'd rather have a whole pile of baby shrimp than 2 giant Godzilla prawns. (ren) 

As for the food, we were probably expecting more in light of our awesome experience at Chutney. My balti sauce was spot on. Exactly how they make it in Birmingham. Unfortunately, I think the chicken was overcooked since it managed not to take on any flavour from the aforementioned sauce.  The naan was poor. And burnt. Ren’s dish was okay I guess. (matt)

The butter chicken, when it arrived, was ok.  The meat itself seemed to have the same problem as matts....almost like it gets cooked on its own and then is thrown into whatever sauce you pick....not so good.  The sauce was a little too far on the tomato side of things but not too far....still ok.  When i heated it up for leftovers the next day it was pretty good.  At first glance we thought they had thrown in an extra tub of rice for us, but it turned out when i was preparing my leftover meal that it was actually a bowl of sweet dessert.  Too bad I don't like Indian desserts, but the gesture is appreciated.  I had a tiny taste, it seemed to be leaning towards the “burnt milk saturated with syrup” school of Indian sweets. (ren)

Deep down, we probably really wanted to give this place a great score. We knew the chef, and were impressed with them when they couriered our meal out to us. Plus now they know where Ren lives.  But the bottom line is, they forgot 33% of our order. Perhaps we should explain using our own chart/graph:

A score of six is “the new black” (or as my gf would say, “The new pirate”), so Greenchili.ca gets a 6. 

Rating: