New Arcade Briyani Centre

This place in Pondicherry started out as just a small counter with one big pot of rice. Now we have the New Arcade Briyani Centre and it’s a bit more than that. We don't really have a big staff, just me and a couple of boys from the neighborhood. Every morning we go to the market to see what's good. If the meat isn't right, we don't buy it, simple as that. Pondicherry can be very humid, so standing over the steam all day makes you pretty tired by four in the afternoon. We see a lot of tourists passing through, but it’s the locals who come back every week that keep us going. We don't spend money on fancy chairs or painting the walls every year. The floor is concrete and the tables are basic wood. People come for the food, not to look at the decorations. Sometimes we run out of biryani before two o'clock and we just have to tell people to come back tomorrow. It’s better to make a set amount and have it be fresh than to keep stuff in a fridge. I don't like using fridges for cooked food. We close up when the pots are empty, wash everything down with the hose, and head home to rest before doing it all again the next day. Sometimes we sit outside on the stools after the lunch rush just to catch our breath and talk about how the city is changing. The ocean air is nice but it makes the metal shutters on the shop rust pretty fast.