Kake Da Punjabi Tadka

The shop is out in the Hebbal Industrial Area in Mysore. We are at 331/A, which is basically right across the street from the big Infosys campus. Because of where we are, we get a lot of workers and people from the nearby offices coming in. We do Punjabi food, the kind of stuff that fills you up when you’ve had a long shift. The industrial area is always busy with trucks and people moving around, so it’s never really quiet here. We start early to get the tandoor going and the dals simmering. It’s a lot of manual work, and the kitchen gets very warm by noon. We don’t have any polished corporate training. We just learned by doing it every day. Some days the supply truck is late or something breaks, and we just have to figure it out as we go. It’s a bit of a rough-and-ready spot, not somewhere you go for a fancy candlelit dinner. We just focus on getting the flavors right so the people working in Hebbal have a good meal. We don't spend money on posters or ads because the word of mouth around the industrial estate is usually enough to keep us busy. It’s a straightforward business. We cook, we serve, and we clean up at the end of the night. It’s tiring, but seeing the same people come back every day makes it feel worth it. We just keep going.