Curry Night at The Didsbury

Obviously, a CPD - Continuing Professional Development - day provides the chance for the sharing of ideas and good practice, and the discussion of effective strategies for future improvement. It also provides a day off timetable, thereby opening up a hitherto unavailable treat: Thursday Curry Night at The Didsbury. As you no doubt already know, I am a principled soul, and one of my unwavering tenets is not to eat curry on a school night, on the basis that I am partial to garlic naan and it's simply not fair to inflict that upon any student who may rashly summon me over to check their work the following morning.

Mr Liz has for some time been looking sorrowfully at the menu for Curry Night, with the air of a man who has undergone great hardship and suffering in a cruel, unfeeling world. So he was most keen to exploit the chance to finally give it a try; indeed, the speed with which he selected his chosen dishes from the aforementioned menu suggested that he had already mentally pre-ordered, many times, just in case the opportunity should ever arise. The way it works is this: for £9.99 each, you may choose two small curries from the menu, which are then served with rice, naan and two onion bhaji, as well as a drink (wine, Cobra or - Mr Liz scoffed at this - a soft drink.)

I chose Butternut Squash Dhansak and Achari Chicken for my two dishes, while my husband went for Beef Curry and - he can't help copying me - Achari Chicken. All the curries were good, and although the dishes looked small when they arrived we found that they were actually very filling - I was forced to leave most of my naan, and this fact, in conjunction with one of my curries being made of actual vegetables, probably means I actually lost a little weight over the course of the evening (what with the walk to and from the car and everything.)

I am still generally sceptical about the whole concept of eating curry in a pub, particularly in an area that is so well served with amazingly good curry houses. Yet Curry Night does offer very good value for money in nicely convivial surroundings, and the number of people partaking of the offer (on a school night! a school night!) suggests that many others agree. More details on The Didsbury's website; you won't see me there on a Thursday for a while, but I do suspect Mr Liz is already checking my diary for my next CPD day...