Ballu Hotel

Ballu Hotel is located at Shop No-460 on Hatwada Road in Hasanpura. This is in Jaipur, the 302006 area. We are in the Kachi Basti neighborhood. It's not a big hotel with rooms to stay in, despite the name. It's more of a small corner eatery where people from the neighborhood come to eat. I’ve lived in Jaipur all my life and this shop is my main work. The space is small and we have a few metal tables. The walls have some old calendars hanging on them. We don't have a waiter; you just come up and ask for what you want. My wife helps me with the prep work in the morning. We cook on a simple stove and use whatever vegetables are fresh at the market that day. The street outside is narrow and full of life. You can hear kids playing and people talking all day. It gets very dusty, so we are always wiping down the counters. We don't have a big sign outside, just the name painted on the wall. Sometimes we run out of food by two in the afternoon if it's a busy day. We don't use any fancy spices or expensive ingredients. It’s just regular home-style cooking for working people. We don't have a computer or anything, we just keep our notes in a small diary. It's a humble business and we like it that way. We just keep our heads down and keep working every day.