Banarasi Tadka

Being out here in Dafi, right by the bypass, means we see a lot of people just passing through. We’re located near the Hyundai service center, so we get a lot of their mechanics and customers coming in for lunch while they wait for their cars. It’s a bit of a dusty area because of all the construction and the highway traffic, but we try to keep the inside decent. My wife helps with the accounts and I stay in the back with the cooks. We call it Banarasi Tadka because we like to keep that local flavor in everything we make. It’s not a fancy place where you’d take a date, but if you’re hungry and on the road, it works. We have a few big pots always simmering. The bypass road gets really busy at night with all the trucks, so we stay open a bit later than some of the shops in the main city. Sometimes the power goes out and we have to mess around with the generator, which is annoying but that’s just life in this part of Varanasi. We don’t have a website or anything like that, just the board outside the shop. Most people find us because they’re getting their vehicles fixed next door or they’re driving towards Narayanpur. It’s just a straightforward eating joint with no extra frills or complicated menu items to worry about.