Golden Star Thali

Over at 330 Raja Ram Mohan Roy Road, things get pretty busy around lunchtime. We’ve been serving thalis here on Charni Road for quite a while now. Running a thali place is different because there are so many little bowls to keep track of. We spend our mornings filling them with different dals and vegetables. It's a lot of carrying heavy trays back and forth from the kitchen. The dining room fills up fast, and you can hear the sound of stainless steel spoons hitting the plates. We don't have a menu where you pick one thing; you just sit down and we start bringing the food out. Our servers are used to moving quickly because people are often in a hurry to get back to work. We try to make sure the rotis stay hot, which means a lot of running back to the stove. It’s a bit of a traditional way of doing things, and we haven't changed much over the years. The walls could probably use a fresh coat of paint, but the kitchen is where we spend all our energy. It’s a loud, bustling place, especially on weekends when families come in. We don’t do any fancy marketing. We just hope that if someone leaves full, they might come back next week. It’s honest work and it keeps us busy from morning till night. Usually, we are just ready to sit down ourselves by the time we close the doors.