A hole in the wall, a choice of a few dishes, and a cosy place to sit and eat - is this Canberra, or a side street in Malaysia?
Welcome to AK's, the newest venture by one of Canberra's most distinctive culinary figures.
And it's now open for business in the teensy kitchen space that, until five months ago, housed the much-loved Ethiopian canteen Fekerte's, serving hoards of weekday workers a small menu of curries and rice.
It turns out the hole left by the simple ingredients of a chalkboard menu, bain marie and limited but high-quality offerings was too vast to stay vacant for long.
Anand Kumar (AK) Ramakrishna closed the phenomenally successful Narrabundah restaurant XO, which he ran with Kent Nhan and Greg Lally, back in October last year, but his apron only stayed hanging for a short time before he was looking for something else.
The idea of hawker-style street food, served at lunchtime on weekdays only, seemed irresistible to someone who'd been immersed in the restaurant scene for so many years.
And he was almost literally bouncing off the walls on Monday morning as the minutes ticked closer to his official opening.
"The last week has just been working 9am to 10pm - I really thought it would be simpler," he said.
But it seems the lure of limited hours and lack of weekends had blinded him to the fact that he would still be every bit as fixated on the quality of his offering.
"I realised that I bit off more than I can chew," he said, gesturing to the bustling kitchen behind him.
"Everyone you see inside there is just helping me today.
"This is a solo project, and when I created this menu, I was like, yeah, I gotta do this. And then into last week, I thought, that's not happening. This cannot happen. And so I had to call a rescue unit."
The menu will be small - two meat dishes, two vegetarian, and a couple of sides, in the form of boiled eggs; "we Malaysians love eggs on the side every time" - and roti, plus the traditional acar rampai pickles he has become famous for.
And the Tamil script above the venue's name - translated meticulously by his own Tamil grandmother - says it all.
"It's roughly - 'eat and then leave', but it also means 'eat first and then let's see after you've enjoyed your food and have a full tummy'," he said.
It's a more humble version of what diners came to expect from XO, and is meant to feel like eating at home.
But there's nothing simple about what this highly trained chef from a deeply ingrained food culture is producing.
His mum's traditional chicken curry recipe won't be something you can whip up in half and hour, and nor will the dahl or mushrooms on this week's menu.
"It seems simpler, but I don't want to drop the standard," he said.
"I don't want to be skimping on the product."
In other words, his hard-won mastery of spices and flavours won't be lost in the process of delivering quick and easy lunches for the daily queues that will form there each day.
"Fingers crossed that whatever I did in the past week will mean it lasts more than a week," he said.
Judging by the buzz in the air and the smells wafting from the kitchen on Monday morning, he has nothing to worry about.
- AK's is open Monday to Friday, 11.30-2.30pm at 2 Phillip Law Street, New Acton.
