This Chennai fast food joint uses an automated machine to prepare fried rice and noodles

The rotating tossing machine at Just Fried Rice
| Photo Credit: Johan Sathyadas

Taadan. Taadan. As goes the rhythmic sound of the pan rubbing against the burner when the ‘master’ cook displays his tossing skill in a rather unassuming fashion.

These familiar beats, synonymous with the hum of fast food joints, are now replaced by the noiseless automation of a machine at Just Fried Rice’s kitchen at Anna Nagar. While the machine doesn’t cook, it smoothly takes over the tossing, a necessarily repetitive action, which could be tedious and tiring for a cook.

Restaurateur Praveen Antony, however, says that the focus was never on the automation but the recipe. He wanted to bring back the taste of what he calls “OG (old generation) fried rice” from a decade ago.

The recipe and menu of this 250 sq ft joint, which was launched in September, was curated accordingly.

Just Fried Rice is his fourth venture in a long list of concept-based restaurants that began with Haunted, a horror-theme restaurant in Anna Nagar; Cholan Mess, a retro-theme restaurant with a focus on regional cuisine from Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Madurai and Dindigul; and Chettinese, a fusion of Chettinad and Chinese operating as a cloud kitchen.

Praveen says his idea was to come up with a family-friendly fast food joint. “Fast food is common for everyone. But somehow kids and women don’t go to these joints often because of the ambience. We wanted to break that notion,” he says.

Just Fried Rice wants to provide authentic fast food taste
| Photo Credit:
Johan Sathyadas

They had a requirement for automation and the machine was sourced, though he says it is not entirely new. “There are so many options in the market. You have Dosamatic to make dosas and there’s Alibaba. If you want to make food on a large scale, then you go for automation.”

As part of the research, he tracked down and visited places that still used recipes that retained the familiar taste of fast food. “Very few fast food joints offer that taste we used to get back in the day,” says Praveen, adding that they worked on many recipes to formulate one that worked.

“When we finalised the recipe, it didn’t suit the machine, even though its contribution is only 25%. The recipe we use now was finalised after a lot of trial and error,” he says.

An SOP with all the recipes and their quantities is pasted on the wall before the automated machine for reference. The fast food joint currently has two women employees in the kitchen who take care of the preparations including chopping vegetables and frying the meat. Praveen stresses that the machine has only replaced the tossing skill.

However, the machine can make 10 portions of fried rice at a time, and since it rotates, it manages to toss the food without breaking the rice or noodles. Which makes it a pretty special employee.