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We are very proud to have earned Trip Advisor’s Certificate of Excellence for 2017

We are delighted to tell our customers and friends that we have received Trip Advisor’s Certificate of Excellence for 2017. The Award, now in its seventh year, recognises and celebrates achievements in the hospitality and restaurant business. Restaurants, hotels, accommodation, eateries and attractions across the world, that have earned great traveller reviews during the past year, have received a Certificate of Excellence for continually delivering a quality customer experience.

Idris Hussain, a Director of the company, said ‘This recognition has followed on from celebrating our 30th year in Seaford, winning the Seahaven Business Awards for the best eatery and receiving a 5 for Scores on the Doors. We are a family run business and it is all credit to everyone in the team that we continue to receive praise for outstanding service and high-quality cuisine. I also want to thank our many diners, both from Seaford and beyond, who take the time to write great reviews and compliments.’

The Certificate of Excellence recognises the quality, quantity and recency of reviews submitted by restaurant reviewers on Trip Advisor over a 12 month period. To qualify, a business must maintain an overall Trip Advisor bubble rating of at least four out of five, have a minimum number of reviews and have been listed on the popular review site for at least 12 months.

Mouthwatering Indian Dishes – what makes our cuisine so delicious?

Spices to warm and entice the palate

There are thousands of regional dishes originating from the continent of India and Asia most of which are flavoured with spices and date back centuries. Some of the Indian spices are Chilli Pepper, Turmeric powder (said to possess antiseptic properties), Ginger, Garlic, Fennel, Fenugreek, Coriander, Black Mustard seeds, Cumin and many more.

Our sub-continent has a wide and varying climate providing the ideal conditions to cultivate many of these spices which have resulted in hundreds of regional variations and given us the exciting cuisine that so many people love today.

One of the ingredients we use widely is the chilli pepper, but this was originally imported from Portugal and picked up by enterprising locals virtually establishing it as native produce.

Cooking techniques

To cook and prepare the wide choice of dishes, we also have an enormous variety of cooking techniques and to prepare traditional recipes, which have been handed down through the generations, the precise selection of spices, which can be a matter of family tradition. Some of our dishes are named after their ingredients, the spices we use or, cooking methods. This is particularly noticeable for food cooked in a Tandoor, a charcoal-fired clay oven, where the dishes are described as Tandoori dishes.

One of the traditional spice mixes is Garam Masala, which means Hot Spices Mix. This is made up of five or more dried spices and, every chef has their unique recipe. Food cooked in the home will vary considerably from that prepared in Indian restaurants due to the methods of preparation.

Spices can be used ground or whole, raw or cooked and they might be added at different times to the cooking process to produce different results which is why what you cook at home is very different to what is prepared in the kitchen of a traditional Indian Restaurant such as the Bengal Palace in Seaford.

Curry has become synonymous with Indian Cuisine

The word ‘curry’ frequently epitomises how people refer to Indian dishes, but the term is one that has been popularized by Western culture. Your curries can come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand or other parts of Southeast Asia and they contain a much less complex mix of spices and herbs.

Curries can contain meat, fish, poultry, shellfish or, be entirely vegetarian. A ‘curry-powder’ as such is a commercial combination of spices thought to have been prepared by Indian merchants for sale to British colonials.

You can also have ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ curries. The former has large amounts of sauce or gravy based on yogurt, lentils, coconut milk or stock and dry curries are cooked with very little liquid which evaporates during cooking leaving the dish coated with the mixture of spices.

History has seen our cuisine evolve

The diversity of our cuisine is, in part, a reflection of the many different cultures and conquerors that have been part of the making of the Indian subcontinent. From the Asian and Afghan conquerors right through to overseas visitors from the Caribbean and the British, have all had their influence and helped make our dishes unique, diverse and ever popular.

The 14th Annual Seahaven Business Awards was a very special night for the Bengal Palace Restaurant in Seaford. We had been overwhelmed with our customers support and 200 testimonials which spoke so highly about our Bengali and Indian cuisine and our personal service.

I arrived, with my wife Rheea, and we were warmly welcomed by the President of Newhaven Chamber of Commerce, Annie Lorys and their committee members. We joined dozens of other local businesses for reception drinks and mingled with VIPs from Seaford, Newhaven and Peacehaven, MP Maria Caulfield, Presidents of the towns’ Chambers of Commerce and the local Mayors. We were both quite nervous as we had not attended the awards evening before but everyone was so kind and friendly, we relaxed and joined other nominated businesses at our table before the arrival of the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex was announced.

Following a delicious three course meal the ceremony got under way with speeches, nominations and prize-giving. As the nominations were called out for the Best Eatery, we really didn’t have any idea that we might be the winners. I couldn’t believe the applause when they called out our name as winners and proudly walked up to accept the trophy from sponsors Fundraising Auctions.

What an evening. It was fantastic and we shared our good fortune with other prize-winning businesses on the table.

We are delighted to have won the award and are very proud of our hard-working staff and family members who have all contributed to us winning this trophy. I thank them all whole-heartedly and know that we are very lucky to have so many customers and regular dinners who enjoy our innovative dishes, support our business and also recommend us. Without our fantastic customers, this would not have been possible. Thank you all so very much.

Award winners from the night are pictured below with the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, Peter Field and His Excellence the Ambassador of Vietnam and his wife.

‘Serving up exquisite culinary delights is one of life’s great pleasures,’ said Eleas Hussain, owner of the Bengal Palace restaurant in Seaford. The Hussain family have been part of the community since 1987 and Eleas and his wife Reea, have brought up their children as part of the local community. Their grandchildren, in particular, are very excited about the Bengal Palace’s big birthday.

Eleas said, ‘My father and uncle first introduced the exciting tastes of our traditional Bengali cuisine to Manchester in a restaurant called Chittagong in 1958. In 1970, the family moved from Salford to Belsize Park, Hampstead and opened Curry Manzil. I was always inspired by the exciting and traditional dishes that were conjured up in our family kitchens and I was determined to open my own restaurant one day.’

Aged 19, and with his father and brother,  Eleas opened his first eatery, Jamuna, in Gravesend, Kent. ‘I think I was probably the youngest Indian restauranteur in the country at that time. I moved from Jamuna to the Swan Tandoori, in the Drive, Hove and later opened the Bengal Spice in Eastbourne. Our move to Seaford was a good choice as was the opening the Bengal Palace Restaurant in Church Street, which has always been our pride and joy.’

If you’ve dined there, you may have tasted some of the innovative regional recipes from their Adventure in Taste menu, which is truly food-inspired.

Refining traditional recipes and adapting them to contemporary Indian dishes has been one of the keys to the family’s success over the years with the other being their outstanding customer service. Their standards certainly came to light recently when they decided to enter the Seahaven Busines Awards for the Best Eatery and, in no time at all, they were overwhelmed with testimonials from their customers.

Traditional recipes from the Indian continent are varied and exciting and India offers familiar favourites such as rogan josh and chicken tikka masala, but at the Bengal Palace, you can find so much more to entice your palate. Not all Indian food is spicy. Fresh ground, roasted and whole spices are common and chilli, is not always needed. Taste buds frequently enjoy milder delights and diners are treated to cumin, ginger, fenugreek, coriander and other aromatic spices and herbs. The dishes are sometimes cooked in the tandoori or slow cooked but are always fresh and enticing with tastes that explode and delight.

‘We shall be celebrating our 30 years in Seaford from Wednesday 5 April, starting with a special evening event at the Bengal Palace with VIP guests including the Mayor of Seaford, Lindsay Freeman. The month of celebrations will also include special offers to customers who book tables in advance to celebrate the 30th anniversary. 

January is often a strange month in the restaurant business but we have been very fortunate in receiving some excellent comments on Trip Advisor this month. 

We are very lucky to have such a wonderful army of regular diners and we especially enjoy meeting new customers who drop by to sample our innovative Bangladeshi cuisine. We had a charming couple in last week who wrote ‘Went for dinner on Monday night, enjoyed it so we went back on Wednesday. Will return again – all good, service great.’ Written by a level 6 contributor, all the way from Maidenhead, we were delighted.

It is really good for all of us, at the Bengal Palace, to read the feedback as we continuously strive to offer an exceptional dining experience, superb food and a first class service. Three weeks ago, a review entitled ‘Brilliant flavours and inspiring menu, this is a real curry house’ warmed our hearts and inspires our chefs to conjure up the full flavours from our traditional menus and serve them with pride.

We offer two menus at the Bengal Palace, one is a classic Indian menu with kormas, masalas, balti and pathia dishes and the other is much more adventurous. Our Xacuti dishes enjoy roasted star aniseed, javitri and fenugreek seeds with special Goan red chillies, coconut and cinnamon; favourite starters such as the Malai Murgh Tikka, is specially selected char-grilled chicken and cottage cheese marinated in yoghurt and garlic, ginger paste and green cardamon javitri powder; for fish lovers, we offer a delicious Seafood Moilee which is a mild Keralan curry using fresh hand-picked white crab meat, king prawns, mussels, monkfish, squid and coconut milk or a Salmon Moilee.

If we have whetted your appetite do come and try some of our exclusive Adventure in Taste dishes and, we look forward to seeing you soon.

Colours of the world – spice up your life’, well known lyrics of the Spice Girls’ 1997 hit single sums up many a special celebration at the Bengal Palace in Seaford.

Beautifully prepared exotic and fragrant dishes, in all the colours of the world, are just the perfect answer to a special anniversary or birthday. Whether a small family party, an intimate dinner for two or a group of friends, there is something for everyone from the restaurant’s varied menus of over 100 different Indian dishes.

Let your imagination run wild and order a stunning selection of starters that would grace the tables of the rich and famous.

Spicy hot balls of white fish (Kola) deep fried in a delicate batter and served with a gorgeous chutney; strips of calamari (Balchao) stir fried with a sour Goan sauce; Mysore Chilli Prawns, lightly battered prawn pieces tossed with spring onions, tomatoes and green chilli.

Your main courses could comprise a meat or vegetarian Thali, served on Indian Silver; the sizzling Kadhai lamb with tenderised chops or Duck Xacuti, slices of duck in a classic full flavoured spicy curry with roasted star aniseed, javitri and fenugreek seeds with special Goan red chillies, coconut and cinnamon.

There are many more ideas on the Adventure in Taste menu or, book a table, and come and see for yourself.

Many of the dishes available on the special Adventure in Taste menu have been inspired by the produce and traditional cooking methods of Bangladesh, a country of around 700 rivers and great beauty. There is a fascinating history and every river has a story. Amongst the lush countryside and paddy fields the people and their traditions are as vibrant and colourful as their wildlife and countryside.

This land of water, rivers, sea and rain, is exceptionally green and very beautiful. It does however experience the problems of climate change with rising river levels from the melting glaciers of the Himalayas, monsoons and frequent floods. The agriculture is important and with the floods the mountains wash down the rich silt to replenish deposits for another round of crops.

Over the past few years the United Nations have been working with the government to manage natural resources with better water management and crops resistant to climate change. This had lead to increased fish stock, floating gardens, more abundant crops for local markets improving livelihoods and incomes so that children can go to school.

If we have tempted you with our tales of Bangladesh natural resources, please ask for the Adventure in Taste menu when you next visit.