This week, a report in a tabloid got many patrons of popular specialty SoBo Chinese eatery, Ling’s Pavilion, all worked up. The reason was a report about AHAR — Indian Hotel & Restaurant Association’s supposed “suggestion” to the eatery to serve Maharashtrain food. The article left us with many unanswered questions — To begin with, why would AHAR want a specialty restaurant to promote and serve local food? Does AHAR have the power to make such a demand? Was this demand only made of Ling’s or were there other restaurants too, which would have to go the Ling way?
‘Baba Ling is not a member of AHAR’: President of AHAR
To get some perspective, we contacted Adarsh Shetty, president of AHAR, who went on to reveal that he did not know how and who made this alleged demand of Ling’s Pavilion. Shetty added, “Baba Ling, the owner of Ling’s Pavilion, is not even a member of AHAR. While it’s true that a suggestion was made to members of AHAR to promote and serve local food, that only extends to fast food outlets and vegetarian eateries. Specialty restaurants are free to serve the kind of cuisine they specialise in. I don’t know why Baba Ling said what he did.” We tried to contact Baba Ling for a response to Shetty’s quote but he was unavailable for comment.
‘Have not heard about this’
We also spoke to a popular South Indian eatery in Matunga to find out if they had received similar suggestions. Devavrat Kamath of Cafe Madras, claimed he had not heard anything about it, adding, “AHAR is known for helping members. A decision like this would have to be agreed upon by all members before it’s implemented. I suspect, if at all a suggestion like this was made, it was misconstrued by Ling’s.”
This story probably has its roots in a Facebook post last year where a user posted a (fake?) pic of the menu which he claimed was Ling’s Pavilion with Maharashtrian dishes on the menu. Meanwhile, we dropped by Ling’s only to find that the buzz is not true. The Maharashtrian dishes are not on the menu. When quizzed about whether they actually were serving local Maharashtrian fare, the staff seemed amused by the suggestion, and replied saying, “Even we are not aware that we serve Maharashtrian food.” And then went on to claim that they don’t.
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