S & S Punjabi Tadka

If you’re driving down Kalka Road in Zirakpur, you’ll probably see us near the Big Bazar. We’ve been cooking here for a while. It’s a busy spot with all the traffic coming through from Chandigarh. We mostly focus on the food. The kitchen is small but we make it work. It gets hot in there, especially in the summer, but that’s part of the trade. We do Punjabi food because that’s what we know. There isn’t much fluff here. You get your food on a plate and you eat. We have some tables, but it’s not a five-star hotel. People come for the taste, not the curtains. My brother and I started this because we needed something to do and we knew how to cook. Now we have a few helpers. We get our vegetables early in the morning and start the prep work before the sun is even up properly. Some days the salt is a bit much or we run out of something, but we try to keep everyone fed. It’s a loud place sometimes with the trucks honking outside. But it feels alive. We like being part of the noise on Kalka Shimla Road. It’s just a small business trying to get through the day like everyone else. No big secrets or special tricks. Just fire and spices. We don't have a website or anything like that. We just focus on the stove and the people standing in front of us. It’s worked for us so far and we don't see any reason to change it.