Billing for your restaurant in Ladakh
Thukpa by the bowl, momos by the plate, tea by the pot, and one bill for each table.
From the first thukpa of the morning to the last pot of tea
The bus party's tea by the pot, a line of its own
A bus party orders tea by the pot for the whole table, not by the cup. Add the pot as its own item beside the cup. The evening's bill shows pots as pots, and in the morning you read how many the bus took, so you know how many to set on the fire the next time a bus is seen on the road.
The trekkers' round and the bus party at the door, billed one after another
A table of trekkers comes in from the cold and orders tea, and then another round. A bus party stands at the door asking for the same. The trekkers' round is one tap, and the bus party's bills are made one after another, each in seconds and each sent to the phone of the person paying.
A diary of the winter lunches for the October decision
Wood for the stove, gas for the pot and the cook's wages go on through the cold months, whether tables fill or not. At the end of winter open December and January and put the lunches that really came beside what those three cost you. Next October you decide to stay open from the days that happened.
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What a Leh restaurant keeps on one phone between the summer rush and the winter lunch
Bills on your phone
A pot of butter tea for the whole table, a cup for the one who sits alone, and the thukpa by the bowl beside them, each in its own unit on the same bill.
Low stock warnings
A warning on wheat flour and sattu together, the two sacks the kitchen runs on, so neither is found empty at the hour the dough is made.
Godown stock
The cold room's sacks of wheat flour and sattu counted by the sack, and the kitchen's day jar counted apart, so skyu and pava are never cooked from a sack meant for February.
Why a Leh kitchen's pot of skyu cannot be cut in half, and its table of trekkers cannot be made to wait
A pot of skyu cannot be cut in half
Skyu and thukpa are made in a big pot: the dough pinched into pieces, the root vegetables cut, the broth on the boil. A pot made at noon is the lunch, and a pot made at six is the dinner. When it is empty the dish is off the menu until you make another, and a pot that is still half full at ten at night is a loss that nobody wrote down, because there was never a count of how many bowls it should have given.
The table of trekkers who all order at once
In the tourist months a group comes in tired and hungry and orders in one burst: thukpa for some, momos for others, tea by the pot for the whole table. Bills are asked for in twos and threes. The cashier is the cook's cousin, or the cook, or you, and a bill written on the pad in that rush loses a plate. The same table calls for another round of tea at nine, when the first bill is still half written on the pad and the pen has gone to the kitchen.
A decision about the cold months, taken in October
When the visitors thin out you must decide whether to keep the kitchen open for the few who still eat out, or shut it until spring. You decide on a feeling about last winter, because the record of last winter is a few lines on a pad. Wood, gas and the cook's wages all hang on the answer. The stove burns just as much wood for a handful of lunches as it does for a full room.
Questions Leh restaurant owners ask about plates, pots and the quiet months
Chilli sauce for the momos is made in a pot and given with the plate. Does it go on the bill?
Add the sauce as an item with its own count. It can go on the bill with the plate, and the count then shows how much sauce a day of momos uses, so you know how much to make tomorrow.
The khambir is finished by nine. Can the breakfast set come off the menu while the tea stays?
Yes. The set and the tea are two items, so the tea goes on being billed alone. Put the morning's khambir as the set's count, and when it reaches nought the phone shows the set is gone before the waiter offers it.
A pot of skyu should give a number of bowls. How do I check the pot against the bowls I sold?
Add skyu as an item sold by the bowl. When the pot is made, set by hand the bowls it should give, and let each bowl sold take one off. What is left on the count at the end is the bowls missing, and the next pot is measured against that.
Skyu, thukpa and khambir: what Ladakh eats, and what the visitors ask for
Ladakh's staple foods are skyu and thukpa made of wheat flour, pava made of sattu and khambir bread. Thukpa and momos with chilli sauce are tourist favourites. A Leh kitchen therefore cooks two menus from the same stove, the one the family eats at home and the one the visitor orders. Wheat flour and sattu, the two grains behind most of it, have to be in the kitchen before the cold sets in.
An NGO, Women Alliance, holds a two-day traditional food festival in Leh serving local Ladakhi dishes, and it draws many tourists from across the world. For a restaurant owner that is a sign that visitors come to Leh to eat what Ladakhis eat, and not only momos. The same visitors who eat at the festival come to a restaurant the next day and ask for the same thukpa.