Utsav Cuisine Restaurant

Powai is a busy place, and being here means we are always on our feet. The restaurant isn't huge, but we crammed in as many tables as we could without making it impossible to walk. In the mornings, the vegetable truck pulls up and we have to carry everything inside through the front door because the back alley is too narrow. You can hear the chefs chopping in the kitchen from the moment we open. It’s a lot of prep work. Sometimes the smell of spices is so strong it makes the new guys sneeze. We use a lot of onions and garlic, so that’s basically what we smell like all the time. The floors are tile, which makes them easy to wash, but they get slippery if someone spills some water near the sink. We’ve got a few regulars who have been coming here since we started in Powai, and they usually sit at the same table every time. If someone else is sitting there, they look a bit annoyed. The chairs are wooden and they creak a little when you sit down. We don't have a fancy computer system for orders, just some pads of paper and a pen tucked behind the ear. It gets chaotic during the dinner rush when everyone wants their food at the same time, but we just manage it the best way we can. We just focus on the cooking.