New Bilal Hotel

New Bilal Hotel is on Anna Salai in Pondicherry. This is a very busy road and we are right near the Raja Theatre. On the weekends when a big movie is playing, the crowd is huge and people are everywhere. We mostly serve the office workers from nearby or people who are just passing through town. The kitchen gets started very early in the morning and you can smell the spices from the sidewalk. We have a few tables downstairs and a small space upstairs for when it gets really packed. It is not a quiet place by any stretch. There is always someone calling out an order or the sound of the big fans on the ceiling. The walls are just painted a plain color and we don’t have any decorations. My father ran this place before me and he always said that if you serve good portions, people will come back. We use the same recipes he used decades ago. Some people tell us we should get air conditioning or fancy lights, but we like it the way it is. The rice is always served hot and we keep the water cold. That is what people need in this Pondicherry heat. We stay open until the last show at the theatre ends, then we clean up and get ready to do it all again.