Something that's not really been touched on is that afaict the role of the 'authentically ethnic' restaurant in an immigrant / ex pat community is a bit more complex and interesting than just "it provides really good authentic curry to people who know what really good authentic curry tastes like and want to eat it but don't want to cook", might be worth discussing.
There seem to be a bunch of functions, some overlapping some not -
- basic functional grub for people who can't cook and want something fairly familiar
- essentially an ex-pat social club where you can get something to eat
- somewhere that does stuff that's fancier or more complicated than you can cook at home
- more upwardly mobile place for eg more cosmopolitan youths
Would be fascinating (and tasty) to do some actual research on this rather than anecdotal evidence and speculation. But in the absence of that, lets have some anecdotal evidence and speculation...