Arcot Biryani Hotel

You can find us in the Masque Building at number 13 on Kamarajar Salai. We are over in the Thattanchavadi area of Pondicherry, not too far from the Muruga Theatre. The building is an older one and we occupy a simple space on the ground floor. When you walk by, you can usually smell the spices and the meat cooking from out on the street. It’s a busy road with a lot of traffic, so there’s always a bit of dust and noise. Inside, we have rows of tables and some basic chairs. We don't have any paintings on the walls or fancy tablecloths. It’s the kind of place where people come to eat quickly and then get back to their day. The kitchen has big metal pots where the biryani is cooked in large batches. You can hear the ladles scraping the bottom of the pots when the lunch rush starts. The staff is always moving fast to get the plates out while the food is still steaming. We get a mix of people, from laborers working nearby to families who don’t feel like cooking at home. The air is often thick with the smell of steam and onions. It gets quite warm inside when all the burners are going, even with the fans on full blast. We just focus on keeping the pots full and the customers fed until the last portion is sold for the day. We finish cleaning up and locking the doors late in the evening.