Have you heard of celebrity Indian chef Atul Kochhar? He’s on TV’s Saturday Kitchen and a mutli-published cookery book author. On-board the ship he has a restaurant called Sindhu which me and The Wife attended last night. It has to be said that this was possibly the best and definitely the most posherest Indian cuisine I’ve ever tasted. Atul and fellow celebrity wino Olly Smith gave us a cookery demonstration in the ship’s theatre, cooking up some crab-based dish and a Lamb Rogan Josh. The smell in the auditorium was amazing, and as the big boss guy was aboard we booked in.

We were given popadoms and dips to start with, my favourite obviously being mango chutney. I had Chicken Tikka starter which was very tender and moreish while The Wife had squid. The third course was a curry pumpkin soup. I could have left this one out with neither soup nor pumpkin being my cup of tea. Now for the main. Vicky had the Rogan Josh we saw being cooked on stage and let me try some sauce – it was very nice and just as I’d have expected from the smell. I went for Chicken Biryani which arrived in the form of a pie which was sliced open by the waitress and the contents spooned to my plate. It was the best pie I’ve ever had and it was about half-way through this course that my stomach hit the 90% capacity alert, but I ploughed on with the vegetable curry, dhal and naan bread, but left the extra portion of boiled rice (sorry, extra rice with biryani??? was that necessary?). After that we were given a little portion of blackcurrant sorbet and meringue before our dessert arrived. The Wife chose panacotta while I went for the five-spiced chocolate pudding. I made the right decision with the oozing gooey chocolate pudding with a background taste of Christmas. I hit 102% capacity (filling up the reserve tanks) and along came our petite fours, literally.. 2 pieces of shortbread and 2 pieces of chocolate covered ginger which looked like mini Cadbury chocolate fingers.

I haven’t looked myself yet, but I’m told (by Atul) that the recipes for the dishes in his restaurant are available in his book (see shameless Amazon advert). I’ll probably be getting a copy myself – they are selling signed copies here on board but a signed recipe book?? The autograph is liable to getting covered in sauce very quickly once I get going.

While we sat in the restaurant I noticed over The Wife’s shoulders that Atul and Olly were sitting at a table on the far side of the restaurant, so being the paparazzi minor celebrity stalker that I am I whipped out my camera and got a few shots. I don’t think he noticed me…