Is there anything inherently wrong with consuming several pints of beer and turning up at an Indian restaurant at half-past midnight for a chicken tikka bhuna?

It is not something I have done now for years, several decades in fact, probably when I was a student at that little known gastronomic city of Hull.

The lagered up call of after-hours hot, spicy food would lead me to either Ray’s Place, where a curry, rice and bread could be had for a fiver, or to the Turkish-East Yorkshire fusion cooking of Falcons Kebabs.

You could get two kebabs (with extra chilli sauce, yoghurt and red onions) for the price of a Ray’s Place madras. These calculations matter when you are a student.

So Ray’s was posh and one would usually end up there after lapsing into Brideshead mode and drinking too much gin.

It wasn’t the finest culinary experience of my life but the food served a purpose, revitalising the body and providing a focal point for communal pleasure. I don’t remember any fights in the Indian restaurant or waiters being racially abused.

Perhaps I was lucky. Perhaps I was too bombed to notice.

But I am wondering now if I should feel ashamed of my late-night curry-scoffing past.

Aktar Islam, one of Birmingham’s leading chefs, has taken a pot shot at the typical neighbourhood curry house, and the balti house in particular, in a newspaper article.

The first-person feature, ghost-written with a hack, was headlined “Ban The Balti” although in fairness to Aktar, the chef director of Hockley-based Lasan did not actually call for legislation to outlaw what is arguably Brum’s most famous dish.

Aktar, who I know reasonably well and whose cooking I admire greatly, pours scorn on the identikit dishes served in many Indian restaurants, like the ubiquitous korma that is “indistinguishable” from one place to the next.

There is criticism of staff who have “little interest in developing their skills,” of the relentless cost-cutting, and of the atmosphere of aggression stoked by drunks.

The chef also vents his frustration at having to justify the price of his food.

He says: “When I charged £21 for a monkfish dish, my customers queried the cost, which I suppose you would if you are used to having a three-course Indian meal for £7.

"Meanwhile, a friend who runs a smart French restaurant in the city charged £23 for smaller portions of the same fish. None of his customers said a word.”