Chef Dalawar Chaudhry, caterer for the Pakistan cricketers during their tour of England, tells Pete Nichols about Imran Khan, fax orders and paratha breads
We first invited the Pakistani team to our west London restaurant, the Tandoori Kebab House, when they were touring in 1974. My father, Abdul-Majid, had always been a very keen cricketer. In Faisalabad, where the family lived before coming to Southall, my father knew all the old players and was always around the pavilion.
The restaurant was opened in 1965 it was my father who invented tandoori cooking. The Tandoori Kebab House was just one room then, but later we bought the bank next door and the house behind, and the house behind that and the house behind that … Now we can seat 500 people over its three floors.
I met the Pakistan team for the first time on Imran Khan’s first tour in 1974. They all came to the restaurant: the captain Intikhab Alam, Asif Iqbal, Mushtaq Mohammad, Sadiq Mohammad and Sarfraz Nawaz.
I was just a little boy then and sat down to eat between Imran and Intikhab. But I didn’t eat a thing. I couldn’t. They were like icons to me.
I just wanted my picture taken. We took a whole coachload of supporters to the Oval that year for the last Test, which was drawn. In fact, all the three Tests were drawn.
Since then, whenever the players have been in England they’ve come to the restaurant. It reminds them of home. And then in 1992, Javed Miandad’s second tour as captain, we started catering more widely for them. Miandad visited the restaurant and said: “If only we could have food like this in the hotel.” I think they were fed up with sandwiches and biscuits.
I said: “That’s no problem,” and we’ve been delivering food to the team whenever they are playing games in London ever since. They have our menu and fax over their requests. I supervise it all myself. You know, we are very proud to be supplying the food, but can you imagine how we’d feel if anyone got a stomach upset?
Everyone has their favourite dishes. Shoaib Akhtar, who visits us whenever he’s in town, on tour or not, always has his naans, parathas and tikka.
We don’t get paid for the service. The food is very important to the team. I think a lot of homesickness and demoralisation creeps in if the food isn’t right. I don’t know how much it costs, I don’t count. We just like to feel part of the team.
This year, we are even feeding the fans, too. On Saturday we took a coachload of supporters to the Test in our special bus. It has the Pakistani flag and the English flag adorning it. We took more than a thousand samoosas to the ground and gave them away.
The Tests are a celebration that’s how we treat them.
Catch day two of the second Test, England vs Pakistan, on Friday on Supersport2 at noon