Quality Tandoori Chicken

Our spot is on Ananda Bhavan Road at No. 41-26/1-57. The main thing here is the heat from the tandoor. It stays hot all evening and the smoke carries the smell of the coal out into the street. We spend most of the afternoon prepping the meat and getting the spices ready. Once the sun goes down, people start showing up. It gets very crowded and the kitchen feels even smaller than it is. We are always on our feet, moving between the oven and the prep table. There isn't much space for sitting, so most people take their food and go. The walls have some soot on them from the fire, which is just part of how these things go. We use a lot of skewers and the tongs are always in someone's hand. Working over an open fire means we are always sweating, even when it is raining outside. Ananda Bhavan Road is a busy stretch, so there is a lot of traffic noise mixing with the sound of the fans. We don't have a big menu, just what we know how to cook well. By the time we close up, we are usually pretty tired and our clothes smell like woodsmoke. We clean the floors, put out the coals, and get ready to do it all over again the next day. It is hard work but it keeps us going.