The patterned Pyrex plates on the tables have not been in production for years. It's the first sign, if you need one, that little has changed in decades in this tucked away part of the Melbourne Building.
The Taj Mahal Restaurant is up a flight of stairs from Northbourne Avenue. A neon sign might encourage you, but it's the kind of place you seek out rather than stumble across. It's dark with wood trim everywhere. It is the type of restaurant where plans are hatched, schemes are made and stories are told.
And for more than half a century, plenty of people have been in the know. Regular lunch groups have dined on a familiar menu of curries and swapped stories, ensconced away from prying eyes at street level.
Legend has it Gough Whitlam, the famed Labor prime minister, had dinner there. Given the number of places to eat out in Canberra in the time of his government, it would hardly be surprising even if the tale is now only apocrphyal.
Janak Raj Sharma established the Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant in Woden in 1974, opening in the dining room of the Woden Valley Club before it moved to 39 Northbourne Avenue.
Jamal Uddin arrived in Canberra from Bangladesh in 1978 to work as a chef in the restaurant. He held that job until 1982 and acquired the restaurant. It had enjoyed considerable success from its inception, he said.
"My wife joined me in managing the restaurant, and since then, we have operated Taj Mahal as a family business. Our menu features home-style cooking, and we have maintained the same menu since 1982," Mr Uddin says.
"We are fortunate to have a loyal customer base."
Taj Mahal was Canberra's first Indian restaurant, opening two years before the Canberra Consumers Incorporated published a booklet that declared the food available in Canberra restaurants showed little evidence of culinary creativity. Had they missed this new offering?
Eating out "may save you the trouble of cooking dinner yourself, and there will be no washing up, but there are unlikely to be any culinary revelations", the booklet, Eating Out 1976, warned.
But as Australia began to open up to the world and embrace multiculturalism, the arrival of a broader, and brighter, array of cuisine began to change the way Canberrans ate, even if, at first, it was met with some trepidation from the Anglo-Saxon palate.
Consider the earliest review published in The Canberra Times about Taj Mahal, which billed itself as a "report on an experiment" that "might encourage others ... who have tended to shy away from Indian food" rather than a regular restaurant review.
"A quick call to the Taj Mahal found us there on Friday night, albeit with one of us showing distinct signs of nervousness. The Taj Mahal is situated above the shops in Northbourne Avenue and the entrance was unprepossessing. Climbing a steep stairway we found ourselves in a small restaurant, holding about 30 people, which was friendly and comfortable rather than elegant. It was quite crowded and noisy but not unpleasantly so and it made a welcome change from the fairly chilly night outside," the paper's unnamed gastronomic correspondent wrote in July 1981.
A kitchen mix up meant an extra-hot dish was served when an extra-mild had been sought. A very apologetic management provided a glass of milk and then a thoroughly extra-mild lamb curry, that was thoroughly enjoyed.
It shows what a different, and improved, country Australia has become since 1981 that very few people would give a second thought to going out for an Indian meal in one of the many options across Canberra. Though an Anglo inclination for thoroughly extra-mild might not have given way completely.
The marked change in the 1970s and 1980s of the cuisine on offer in Canberra is perhaps best indicated by the sudden arrival of several Vietnamese restaurants in the early 1980s.
In 1977, there were no Vietnamese restaurants in Canberra. By January 1982, there were nine. When Canberra's first Japanese restaurant opened in the same year, the owners reported struggling to find the seasonings and ingredients needed to prepare their authentic cuisine. Sushi spots are now ubiquitous in the city. "Yum cha" needed an explanation when it was first advertised in the Times in 1978.
The late Rosemary Brissenden, whose authoritative book South East Asian Food was published in 1970, wrote reviews in the Times through the 1980s that guided Canberrans to expand their tastes and try the restaurants bringing new dishes and flavours to the city.
"All praise to the Vietnamese! The great influx in the 1970s led to an expansion and rejuvenation of Australian cuisine of a kind unmatched since the arrival of the Italians in the 1950s," Brissenden wrote in March 1989.
"First we became accustomed to fish sauce through Vietnamese cooking and then we were ready for Thai flavours. These have now found a place in an eclectic Australian cuisine. The fish sauce factory could soon become as promising an investment for Australians as the pasta business."
By 1986, the ACT's Restaurant and Catering Association had wanted a study of the problems the industry faced. There were "too many restaurants" in the capital and no new liquor licences should be issued to give existing restaurateurs a chance in the over-saturated market, the association said.
The Department of Territories, then tasked with the administration of the city before Canberrans governed themselves, was not having it and rejected the suggestion that would have amounted to creating a "closed shop".
The laissez faire approach has allowed plenty of operators to give it a crack, but few have gone the distance over the decades.
Back at Northbourne Avenue, Jamal Uddin's son, Shiraj, runs Taj Mahal now. He started working in the restaurant as a young man and, despite whatever plans he might have had, never quite left.
Shiraj knows his regulars well - and the irregulars. Welsh comedian Rob Brydon came in one evening when the Canberra Theatre called to see if they could stay open late after his show was done. Real celebrities and Canberra celebrities have all had their time to come up the stairs.
But the era of the long lunch, Shiraj tells me, is over. Working from home means a new generation of lunchers is not being trained and the largesse of the 1980s and 1990s is a thing of the past; the introduction of fringe benefits tax in 1986 did not help. And now office workers are expected to get back to their desks without being three sheets to the wind.
But Taj Mahal keeps going much as it ever has. The menu has not changed and nor has the kitchen. Long-lunchers are still heartily encouraged.
The tandoor Shiraj's father built - a large, vase-shaped oven - is still working at the back of the long, thin kitchen that overlooks Odgers Lane. It is no longer powered with charcoal but that is one of the few concessions Taj Mahal has made to contemporary times. Everything else is as it was, Shiraj says.
Taj Mahal nominates loyal customers as the key to success. A family business able to scale up and down, and comfortable with what it does, seems part of the equation too.
On a recent weeknight, a few tables filled up in the chatty atmosphere of the dining room. A banquet, featuring entrees, a couple of curries and rice between two, reveals the confident hand that has done this innumerable times before.
"We always come back when we're in Canberra. Every few years or so," I overhear one customer say, as she settles the bill. "We'll see you next time."
Good chance it will be just like all the times before.
