BOSE BRIYANI
WITH HIS FAMILY’S TRAVEL
and tours business massively impacted by the pandemic, and the limitations on live events available last year, standup comedian Hindra Bose had to pivot quick to protect and ensure his and his family’s livelihoods.
Drawing originality from his father’s culinary journey which started back in 1986, Hindra decided it was time to cash in on what the family has been known for ̶their tasty biryani.
Talk us through your day.
Although my business hours are mainly from 12noon to 3 in the afternoon, I start the food preparation at 5 in the morning. It’s an entire family affair ‒ my parents, sibling and I do the cooking, plus my sister also makes the drinks. In fact, everyone pumped in what money we had left to get the business going.
Once everything is ready and loaded onto the food truck, I begin driving over to Seksyen 14, PJ on the weekdays and Brickfields on the weekend. And I stay until I’ve sold out, which usually happens around 3 in the afternoon, after the lunch time crowd. Then I start driving back, and the cleaning process begins, to prepare for the next day.
Tell us about the biryani.
My family specialises in what’s known as Ambur-style biryani, which we prepare using ingredients from halal vendors.There are a few biryani options to choose from as well, depending on your spice tolerance, plus meat preference for chicken, mutton and even sardine.
We also try our best to reduce our impact on the environment by cutting down on the use of plastic. Thus, you’ll see that we serve our biryani in foil packaging.
What was a challenge sta ing out?
The biggest challenge is definitely estimating the amount of food to make. On our first day, we only managed to sell half of what we prepared, and ended up having to give away the rest to the needy.
However, we’ve now grown in popularity and demand has increased too, which is definitely a good problem to have.
What about your standup comedy?
That is still my main passion, and I do comedy gigs when possible. My last major event though was in September 2020, at KLCC, alongside Harith Iskander, Douglas Lim and a few others. I definitely can’t wait for this pandemic to get better so that I can perform on stage again.