Billing for your eatery or tea stall in Meghalaya
A plate with its extras, a pot that runs out, and the taxi drivers who pay at month end.
A plate of jadoh with its extras, a pot that ends the day, and a wedding feast ordered on a scrap
A plate of jadoh, and the extras added one by one
The plate is one price, but the customer adds an extra piece of meat, an egg, a bowl of dal or a side of salad. Each is a few rupees, called out over the noise and added in the head. At the end of a busy lunch the cash is a little short, and nobody can say which extra was never charged. On a Sunday, with the crowd after church, the same sum is done ten times in an hour.
The pot is cooked in the morning, and when it is empty the day is over
Jadoh and tungrymbai are made in big batches, early. You cannot cook more at two o'clock for the customers who come late. So the day is decided by how many plates the pot holds, and you find out the pot is nearly empty when the third table asks and there is nothing to give them. The family that arrived at one o'clock and was turned away does not return the next week.
A wedding feast ordered for tomorrow, and a scrap of paper the cook cannot find
A family in the lane has a wedding next day and orders jadoh and tungrymbai for the feast. The order is taken at the counter by whoever is free and written on a scrap, and the shop cooks to the scrap. In the morning the scrap cannot be found. The pork bought for the feast is the same pork as for the shop's own pot, and by noon nobody can say how much of it was the family's.
Ginger, rice and bamboo: what the districts put in Meghalaya's pots
What goes into a pot depends on what the district grows, and these are two places where you can see it.
- In West Jaintia Hills potato, ginger, garlic and turmeric are the key cash crops, and the same roots flavour the kitchens that serve the district.
- In Ri Bhoi's Umling block the main occupation is cultivation, and bamboo and cane work is a local craft.
Tools for the counter that serves jadoh and tungrymbai
Bills on your phone
A Sunday table billed in one go, with eight full plates and two half plates, sent to the person who is paying.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the morning's pot of jadoh or tungrymbai is down to a few plates.
Orders to suppliers
The morning's pork and rice order, with the kilos the seller brought written beside the kilos you asked for.
Pork, chicken and vegetable plates, the morning kilos, and the taxi stand's monthly page
Pork, chicken and vegetable jadoh as three plates with three rates
Make each kind of jadoh its own item with its own rate. At the table the choice is two taps, and the day's report says how many of each plate the customers asked for. Tomorrow's meat is bought to that count, not to the pot's size. You also see, after a month, which kind the neighbourhood keeps asking for.
Sunday's pot and Tuesday's pot, read side by side before the pork is bought
Open the sales of last Sunday and of last Tuesday: plates of jadoh by kind, plates of tungrymbai, cups of tea. The two days tell you how much pork and rice to ask the seller for, and the pot you cook in the morning matches the day that is coming.
The driver's tea and plate, billed in the gap between two shared taxis
A driver eats jadoh in the gap between two shared taxis. His tea and his plate are one tap each, and the bill is closed before the next taxi is called. The stand's drivers like it because they are never made to wait while a long sum is added up.
Questions Meghalaya eateries and tea stalls ask
A customer calls out an egg, a piece of meat, dal and salad with his jadoh. Can each be added as its own line?
Yes. Make the egg, the extra meat piece, the dal and the salad each an item with a small rate. As the customer calls them out you tap them onto the plate's bill, and the total is ready when he finishes.
I wrap tungrymbai in a bamboo leaf for takeaway. Can I bill it by the parcel?
Yes. Keep the bamboo leaf as an item in stock, counted by the piece, and bill the parcel as its own item. The leaves left and the parcels sold sit side by side in the day's list.
A family brings its own pork for tomorrow's wedding feast and I supply the rest. What goes on the bill?
Bill only what you supply: the rice, the dal and the cooking, each as its own line on the family's page. The family's pork never enters your stock, so your count of pork is not touched.
Jadoh and tungrymbai go on one plate for some and on two for others. Can the bill hold both and the day's list count each?
Yes. Jadoh and tungrymbai are two items, each with its own rate, and a plate with both is two lines on one bill. The day's list says how many of each pot went, so you know which pot to cook more of.
Jadoh and tungrymbai on Shillong's tables
Jadoh, a Shillong speciality of rice mixed with pieces of meat and topped with herbs like mint and ginger, is served at food stalls and eateries across the city.
Tungrymbai, a Meghalaya delicacy of fermented soy beans wrapped in bamboo leaves and mixed with chilli paste and spices, is a gravy dish eaten with bread or rice.