GOING for a curry at Chung King Mansion is the closest experience one can get to downtown Bombay for a $1.40 ferry ride.
Five minutes' walk through the neon glare of Tsim Sha Tsui, a sharp right into the bustling crumbling construction (pausing - perhaps - to purchase bananas, toys, or a particularly tasteless porn video) where you are soon besieged by men offering cards and assuring you their particular restaurant offers the freshest, best food on the block.
Some of the curry houses here do serve excellent Indian food. Some are only average; still more are pretty awful. Take the lift to the seventh floor - an experience in itself - and push open the door of Khyber Pass for curries which are certainly fresh and tasty and where two can easily eat for $100.
The restaurant itself screeches school dinners - witness the big jugs of water on each table - and pan-Asian tack: cheap plastic tabletops complete with large embossed daisies; fake ivy in rows down the low-slung ceiling; bamboo-embellished curtains; the obligatory Taj Mahal in glitters on black felt.
To reach it, one travels by a painfully slow lift which buzzes when too full: expert jigging and jiving can enable an extra passenger to jump aboard, but the search for the right spot can be a slow one. There is plenty of time, gazing out at grubby corridors, to contemplate poor hygiene and germs.
Khyber Pass may not be a place to take elderly relatives, but the young at heart have a ball - big parties can cluster together, and the accommodating staff will even dim the lights and bring on birthday cake. Indians huddle round the tables - always a good sign. There is a sense of efficiency, as there needs to be in an establishment this popular.
