RESTAURANT REVIEW: MI FOOD CENTRE

I have a love hate relationship with Meharchand Market. I know the India we inhabit, the one with food blogs, holidays abroad and instagram accounts isn’t the one everyone gets but nowhere is that more obvious than at Meharchand. Just a few years ago, the place was overrun by small tailoring units with a semi-slum in the back. The tailoring units are gone. The slum remains. Almost every store opened after I moved to this city and the poverty persists, side by side. Fancy cupcakeries with pretty glass doors that are smudged with the hand prints of street children looking in. Pretentious French restaurants with half naked babies sleeping unattended on the sidewalk in front covered with flies. You can stand on the doorstep of a foofy boutique and actually feel you have each foot on a different planet.  Every time I go back there are fewer tailors and more stores peddling Indian kitsch. The restaurant scene has also really taken off but I’m not fan. Elma’s is bizarrely structured, Café 88 is pretty much a total bust, Chez Nini gets mixed reviews and after a bad first impression I haven’t ventured back. The only place I liked was Bagel’s Café which has now been replaced with something called “Tikka Town.” In the middle of this blossoming identity crisis, MI Food Centre stands solid, watching fads fade in and out while serving out super kebabs.