This is it: I am finally outing myself as a foodie. The days of pretending to have only a passing interest in food are now officially over.

I am one of those people who is terribly interested in what you’ve had for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and will listen in fascination to your description of how each meal was cooked. Come to think of it, I even want to know what your kids have in their lunch boxes!

This is a characteristic I share with many, including fellow Indians, and like them I am extremely passionate about Indian food.

We try and conjure up interesting Indian dishes at home and most Indian foodies like me are also on a perpetual quest to find great Indian restaurants. There is always a difference between “home food” and “outside food”. The former being healthy food such as dal, vegetables, rice and chappatis that we cook ourselves; and the latter comprising extremely delicious but extremely rich food that we eat outside but never contemplate making at home because we can’t come to terms with the alarming quantities of butter, oil and cream involved.

And I am not alone in this at home: my mother, husband and son all share my views. We spend most mealtimes discussing what we are going to have for our next meal; menus are planned meticulously and executed flawlessly either by my mum or I. Yes, the husband does not cook and as you may have guessed it, tries to have maximum input on the menu. Let’s not even start on the son…takeaway menus are read like works of literature at home and places identified for our next Indian meal.

So here we are. One thing led to another and one mealtime, (when else?) I started to rhapsodise about the near perfect biryanis I have had in Mumbai. Out of that conversation the quest for a perfect Biryani in London was born.

Join me (and my family, I am sure they will creep in with their views) as I scour restaurants and takeaways big and small for biryani perfection.