General Bilimoria's Canteen - Billericay

Dhansak is a Parsi dish, not a north Indian one. It is cooked with lentils, which thicken the sauce, and finished with something sour — so it lands sweet, sour and hot at the same time. That combination is why people who order it rarely switch back. We make six: chicken, chicken tikka, meat, meat tikka, prawn and king prawn.

Patia is the other Parsi curry on our menu and it is the sharper of the two. It is built on onion and tomato with red chilli and lemon, giving a tangy, almost pickled edge that dhansak's lentils soften. If you like dhansak but want more bite, order patia. We make six versions of it.

Shatkora is a citrus fruit from Sylhet in Bangladesh, somewhere between a lemon and a grapefruit, and it is cooked into the curry rather than squeezed over it. The result is sharp and slightly bitter in a way no lemon can copy. We cook it with chicken or with lamb.

Three more dishes from the Bangladeshi side of the menu. Rezala is cooked with garlic, ginger and green chillies and finished light rather than heavy. Sagwala brings spinach and garlic together with chicken, lamb or king prawn. Murghi masala is spring chicken off the bone, cooked with lamb mince and egg.

Ceylon curry is hot and sour, finished with coconut. Kashmir is its opposite: mild and sweet, cooked with lychees. Both sit in our Exotic Indian Dishes section alongside the more familiar korma, bhuna, madras and vindaloo.

Ten biryanis served with vegetable curry and pilau rice, fifteen starters from onion bhaji to tandoori king prawn, fifteen vegetable sides and nineteen rice and bread options including stuffed paratha and cheese chilli coriander naan. It is a full restaurant menu, cooked to order and delivered.