Aggrawal Vaishno Dhaba

Aggrawal Vaishno Dhaba has been sitting here on Cool Road in Jalandhar for quite a while now. We are right in the New Colony area, which is a busy spot with cars and rickshaws always honking outside. Inside the dhaba, it is mostly the sound of the tandoor being scraped and the clatter of metal spoons against the pans. We start early to get the coal burning and the vegetables chopped up for the lunch crowd. Our walls are painted a simple color and the floor is just plain tiles that we mop whenever we get a quiet minute. People from the nearby offices usually come in around one o'clock, and the place gets a bit smoky from the rotis being made. We do not have any soft music or fancy decorations on the walls. It is just a place where you can sit down on a sturdy chair and eat without any fuss. The staff is mostly local guys who have been working together for years, so we do not have to talk much to know what needs to be done. Sometimes the heat in the kitchen is hard to handle during the summer months, but we just drink a lot of water and keep the orders moving. We serve everything on those divided steel plates because they are easy to wash and they do not break. It is honest work and we try to keep the salt and spices consistent every day.