Balti with extra bite - like Jaws!

Balti Chef, in Cavendish Court, Lawkholme Lane, has just started serving up the new dish for diners to get their teeth into.

The Punjabi-style shark dish has been going down well with customers at the restaurant according to manager Mohammed Parvaiz.

He said: "We have introduced shark fish into Indian and Pakistani restaurants for the very first time ever.

"Everybody does the usual lamb and chicken balti, which we also do very well here, but we wanted to offer something different and widen the choice dramatically to open up the Asian market and develop the seafood options beyond prawns and king prawns."

Shark is used in cooking across the globe and is more usually baked, grilled, broiled, pan-fried, stir-fried, steamed or poached. The balti shark at Balti Chef is prepared with extra garlic and tomatoes, fresh green chillies, pepper, coriander, ginger, mustard oil, as well as nutmeg and other spices.

Mr Parvaiz added: "The shark has been on the menu for an introductory time now and I'd say about three in ten people try it and they all seem to like it.

Mr Parvaiz said that the shark meat was unlike any other taste and that diners had been surprised but not disappointed with its strong flavour.

He said that the restaurant could get through about 20lb of shark a week.

Approximately 125 countries commercially fish for shark. There are several hundred species of shark, but only a handful of these are harvested for food.

Mr Parvaiz does not know the specific species of shark he serves, but the bonito is found in the Pacific -- where Mr Parvaiz imports from -- and has meat that looks and tastes like swordfish

A the moment the bonito and common thresher breeds of shark are relatively plentiful.

On a worldwide scale an average of 704,000 metric tonnes of general shark meat is sold annually. There have been concerns raised that on such a scale, the shark is at serious risk of becoming an endangered species.