Rotating Tossing Machine Just Fried Rice | Photo credit: Johan Satyadas
Tadan, Tadan. As is the rhythmic sound of the pan rubbing against the burner as the ‘master’ cook displays his tossing skills in a simple fashion.
These familiar beats synonymous with the hum of fast food joints have now been replaced by the noiseless automation of a machine in the kitchen of Just Fried Rice in Anna Nagar. While the machine doesn’t cook, it easily takes on tossing, a necessary repetitive action that can become tedious and tiresome for a cook.
Restaurateur Praveen Antony, however, says the focus was never on automation but on recipes. He wanted to bring back what he called the “OG Fried Rice” taste of a decade earlier.
The recipes and menu of this 250-square-foot joint, which launched in September, were curated accordingly.
Just Fried Rice is their fourth venture in a long list of concept-based restaurants, which started with Haunted, a horror-themed restaurant in Anna Nagar; Cholan Mess, a retro-themed restaurant with a focus on regional cuisine from Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Madurai and Dindigul; and Chettinaes, a mixture of Chettinad and Chinese that serve as a cloud kitchen.
Praveen says his idea was to create a family-friendly fast food joint. “Fast food is common to everyone. But because of the atmosphere, children and women often don’t go to these joints. We wanted to break that perception,” he says.
Just Fried Rice seeks to provide authentic fast food taste. Photo credit: Johan Satyadas
He needed automation and a machine was brought in, although he says it is not brand new. “There are so many options in the market. You have Dosamatic for making dosa and you have Alibaba. If you want to cook on a large scale, you go for automation.”
As part of the research, he located and visited places that still used recipes that retained the familiar taste of fast food. “Very few fast food joints offer the taste that we used to get back in the day,” says Praveen.
“When we finalized the recipe, it was not machine friendly even though it contributed only 25%. The recipe we use now was finalized after a lot of trial and error,” he says.
An SOP with all the dishes and their quantity is pasted on the wall in front of the automatic machine for reference. The fast food joint currently has two female staff in the kitchen who take care of preparations including chopping vegetables and roasting meat. Praveen insists that the machine has only replaced the tossing skill.
However, the machine can make 10 portions of fried rice at a time, and as it rotates, it manages to toss the food without breaking the rice or noodles. Which makes it a very special employee.