Comic talks about eating anything, THAT bread roll incident, and whether he's jealous of James Acaster and Ed Gamble

Nish Kumar once ate a brain curry.

The comic, who says he is ‘one of the great eaters of our age’ said he tried the masala dish – made from goat – on a visit to Mumbai.

And he said it was ‘some of the best food I've ever eaten in my life’

He apparently ate it while visiting the city with his dad. ’It was [from] a sort of food stand,’ he said when he appeared on the Dish podcast. ‘It's called Bademiya’s, and it's a food stand behind the Taj Hotel.

‘The thing with Mumbai and Delhi particularly, it's the street food is insane. But it's important to go with people who live there because they'll be like, "That's gonna give you diarrhoea. That's gonna give you diarrhoea. That stand, the guy washes his hands." Bang, you're in.

‘Street food in Mumbai and Delhi is kind of unbeatable. And Bademiya’s, the guy is incredible because like, he was a cook at this restaurant, he asked for more money and the [owner] was like, "I'm not gonna give you more money. People come here for the venue, not your food."

‘And he then opened a stand - you know, like the spite store series of Curb your Enthusiasm? He basically invented the spite store. Like he opened a stand next to it and obviously everybody went to the stand because what people want is the food.’

Kumar told podcast hosts Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett that his granddad ran two Indian restaurants, and that his last job before he retired was running ‘a proper greasy spoon, which I see as like a real victory for the integration of an immigrant community.’

A podcast about food was inevitably going to cover the incident when someone threw a bread roll at him during the Lord's Taverners' Christmas lunch in 2019.

Kumar said: 'I am umbilically connected for the rest of my life to bread rolls. It's a tragedy because I love bread.’

He explained that it became such an in-joke that two weeks after the event he was doing the best man speech at  fellow comic Tom Neenan's wedding when Ahir Shah threw his bread roll at me.

‘But unfortunately, Ahir Shah is not particularly one of our more physically capable specimen specimens,’ Kumar told the podcast. ‘He missed and hit James Acaster in the face.’

Kumar also spoke about the success of the Off Menu podcast, hosted by Acaster and Ed Gamble, both friends of his.

He said: ‘I'm thrilled that it occupies the two of them because I worry what they would do with too much free time.

‘The only thing that I'm furious about, and I have expressed this to both of them, is that they're doing the Royal Albert Hall live. I would be happy with them doing the O2, but for some reason the Royal Albert Hall, where Jimmy Hendrix and Bob Dylan performed.

‘The idea of those two clowns asking people if they wanna eat popadoms or bread on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall has pushed me over the edge.’

‘The last time I went to the Royal Albert Hall, I saw Ravi Shankar perform… like these are icons, legends of music who have moved music forward and done things that challenge our perceptions of what art can and can't be. And now James Acaster's gonna be there going, "I'm a genie. Do you like sandwiches?’"

But for all that, he admitted: ‘I've got my ticket.’

• Dish from Waitrose & Partners, hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett is available on all podcast providers now.

Published: 24 May 2023