Bhole Shankar Achar Bhandar

You can find us at Bhole Shankar Achar Bhandar, over at A-706 in Jawala Puri. We are in Comp No.4, right near that little lane everyone calls Post Office Wala Gali. It’s a tight squeeze getting back there, but we’ve been here forever. Our place is always full of the smell of vinegar and chili powder. We make pickles the old-fashioned way. It’s a lot of manual labor, peeling and cutting vegetables by hand. We don’t use those big industrial machines because we think the texture comes out better this way. There are jars everywhere you look, sitting on the floor and stacked on wooden shelves. We use the recipes our grandmother taught us. It’s a family business, so it’s usually just me, my brother, and a couple of cousins working in the back. It gets pretty hot in the summer, but we keep the fans going. We don’t have a website or anything like that. People just walk in or call us when they need a jar or two for their lunch. The post office nearby is a good landmark if you’re looking for us. We just do our thing every day, mixing the spices and waiting for the sunlight to hit the jars on the terrace. It’s a slow process, making good achar. We don't rush it. It’s just a simple life here in Jawala Puri, making things people enjoy eating. We hope the spicy kick makes their day a bit better. That is all.