You could be next to a movie studio on a hot, sultry night in Mumbai. The stars slide into their seats for a break from the exertions of filming. Try not to look. Act cool as if you too are part of the Indian celebrity scene.
This is Bollywood, Brentford
Indian restaurants are as British as fish and chips. I was present when a Mr Mir unveiled an urn in a Bradford millworkers' cafe and declared it to be the first tandori imported into the country. He said it would soon be popular. We looked sceptical.
In 1966 it was a word we'd never heard of. Ten years later tandori was emblazoned on every high street and was part of the national identity. Like pizza. Mr Mir was so right. Fish and chips was almost as dead as a Grimsby trawler.
I've spent fifty years sampling Indian cuisine and seen the menus age with me, not always for the better, and sometimes I look at the fare and sigh at the predictability. So thank god for someone trying to be be different.
This is the intention of Pappadums, visible across the canal from Brentford Dock. It promises: 'Authentic North and South Indian Cuisine offered in a contemporary location by the Riverside ... our highest priority is satisfied customers. You are important to us and you can expect us to go the extra mile. Superior customer service is the hallmark of Pappadums.'
To find out I attend with my fellow Docker, Zoe, making us the local answer to Greg Wallace and John Torode.
It is a stylish place, with tables outside for the summer, with air-conditioning and modern wooden floors. We are greeted by Sanjeeta and other staff who look familiar. Then I place it. They have the grace, charm and smiles of - yes - Bollywood film stars! I tell them they should be in the movies. They smile like studio floodlights.
We sit with a view of the Thames in a room which is just becoming busy, partly with Indian families who travel especially to this address.
On the grounds that we had been transported to Mumbai, we order two large bottles of Kingfisher beer and the eponymous poppadums, a signature dish in more ways than one.
'It's a routine beginning,' I say in a Greg Wallace sort of grunt. 'Does routine have to mean ordinary?'
'Good point,' says my hungry companion. 'For a place calling itself Poppadums, they need to be not just good but the best. Let's see. Mmmm. They're fresh. They're brittle. They shatter crisply beneath the fingers. There are three chutneys. The mango is sweet yet pokey. All are fresh, home-made and stimulating.'
For starters Zoe has the vegetable samosas.
'Predictable in theory,' she says. 'But interesting in practice. Crisp, not oily, lots of coriander. I'd say these are as good a samosas get...'
I have Pyaz and Palak Pakoda, a kind of onion and spinach fritters, hot and with a tamarind sauce. I approve.
For mains, Zoe has Jhinga Lasooni, tiger prawns marinated in garlic and olive oil. I have the day's special - red snapper. We share a Subz Miloni - a crispy mixed veg dish - and rather more Naan than we can finish, plus a tangy raita. We wash it down with more cold Kingfisher.
I'd like to be critical. This was not a freebie. It was text book Indian cooking, with everything the way it was supposed to be, and served with a zing to match.
India is a huge sub-continent and the cuisine varies according to climate and topography although not as much as that of the European continent. Pappadums offers the Big City flavours, the kind of dishes you find in the continent's rich downtowns, to a deafening background of traffic and chirruping crickets.
Experience it on a sultry evening and take my advice and watch carefully out of the panorama window. If you fully believe in the Brentford Triangle, then this is a new corner and, if you're very, very good, you may just glimpse the ghosts of a chorus line singing and dancing, clicking and blinging, along the banks of the Thames.
Enjoy your visit to Bollywood.
Bill for two, with beers, including 10 per cent service: £57.59.
