Published: Wednesday, 18th November, 2009 3:38pm

Restaurant vows to curry on with title bid

A JOHNSTONE curry restaurant has vowed to be next year's best curry restaurant in Scotland after narrowly missing out on the 2009 title.

The Ashoka has been highly commended by the British Curry Awards but lost out on the top prize to a restaurant in Aberdeen.

However this didn't dampen the spirits of owner Cook Gill, who is delighted just to have been nominated.

Cook said: "It's been excellent, the staff have worked really hard and to come runner up is a great achievement.

"Next year hopefully we can bring the title to Johnstone."

Cook travelled down to London to attend the awards ceremony with his manager, Rakesh, and chef, Rana, at the beginning of November.

The trio joined 1,500 people at the awards ceremony, which was held at London's Battersea Evolution. Guests included Conservative party leader, David Cameron.

Cook said: "It was an excellent ceremony.

"It was a nice venue, fabulous location and it was really well done.

"The hosts for the evening were Chris Tarrant, from 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' and Sir Trevor McDonald.

"It was a really great night, just to see these guys up there was really good."

Cook also praised David Cameron as he thought he came across well. He added:

"A lot of the Asian community were there and I think he went down really well with them."

This year was the first time a party leader had attended the prestigious awards.

Cameron told the packed audience that it was a pleasure to attend the evening.

He continued: "The British curry industry is a great success story.

"It's shown how people from all backgrounds, with different creeds and cultures, can come together as one.

"And it's shown exactly what an open-minded, dynamic and enterprising country can achieve.

"Enam Ali (founder and organiser) - and everyone here this evening - should be incredibly proud of what they've achieved."

Cook and his staff would like to thank all their customers for their continued support. He said: "If it wasn't for the support of the customers we wouldn't be here in the first place.

"The customers really pushed us to achieve what we have so far and we thank them."

This year's British Curry Awards winners were chosen from a record 40,000 public nominations, covering more than 2,700 restaurants.

*Turn to page 21 for your exclusive 2 for 1 Ashoka voucher.

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