I can’t think of a restaurant interior in this city more wildly polychromatic than the one at Mirchi Indian Street Food in Winter Garden. Its Bollywood-meets-Umbrellas of Cherbourg aesthetic puts diners at risk of sensory whiplash — its walls awash in the reds, yellows and oranges of Indian film posters forced my neck upward from the colorful adverts, newspaper clippings and South Asian comics embossed on tabletops. Then there are the scores of inverted parasols in every imaginable hue adorning the restaurant’s ceiling, not to mention the front grill of a Tata bus. And if that weren’t cervically straining enough, a television behind a Jodhpurian blue counter aired the Indian subcontinent’s most beloved sport — cricket.
But what ultimately stabilized our collective craniums wasn’t the barrage of sixes struck by the batsmen on the Gujurat Titans, but the hits coming out of Mirchi’s kitchen. No surprise that the spicing here veers towards the wicked — “Mirchi,” after all means “chili pepper,” and a red hot forms part of the restaurant’s logo. The chicken 65, a deep-fried South Indian burner, is the best $9 you’ll spend on chicken anywhere. The reddened morsels are topped with tadka — garlic, green chilies, curry leaves and other spices bloomed in hot oil — for added heat (and comfort). Even cold, hollowed-out puris filled with seasoned potatoes ($8) yielded fragrant bombs of fire. The Mumbai-style pani puri were topped with crunchy bits of sev (noodles made from chickpea flour), yogurt and sweet and spicy chutneys. It was an impressive start to our meal, which only got better with a ghee karam masala dosa ($12), a rice-and-lentil crepe filled with seasoned potatoes and served with four dips — coconut chutney, sambar, rasam and a gunpowder/ghee mix — the “ghee karam” that lends the dish its name.
The veg set should also get behind the amal butter vada pav ($8) and place the meatless handheld into their regular rotation. Between those two airy and butter-glistening dinner rolls is a spiced potato fritter that the meat lovers in my party wholly appreciated. Dip it into the side of gunpowder, then chomp into the fried green chili, and you’ll go out in a blaze of glory. BTW, you get two of these for $8.
Another veg delight: pav bhaji ($10). Those buttered rolls are a vessel for this iconic Mumbai street staple centered around a heady curry. The puree of assorted vegetables — peas, beans, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower — is emboldened by the masala, particularly the bite of mango powder, that flavors it.
On the other end of the flavor spectrum is the “Triple Szechwan” fried rice ($15), an Indo-Chinese offering that saw a fried egg garnished with crispy noodles sitting atop the wok-fried kernels. A bowl of gravy fashioned from veg, soy sauce and a cornstarch slurry is meant to be poured over the heap, and the messy combination somehow, bizarrely, worked. If there was a dish that didn’t, it was the paneer tikka keema sandwich ($9). I wasn’t a fan of the soft and mushy texture of the spiced cheese crumbles mixed with diced onions and peppers, though others in my party thought it was done “just right.”
In any case, it only served to fan the flames in our bellies, which necessitated some sweets. First, gulab jamun ($5), served warm as it always should be. But it was the rabdi — cooked-down milk scented with cardamom — accompanying fried jalebi ($5) that really proved palliative. As did a cup of truly stellar chai ($4).
But for a restaurant named after a chili pepper, the soothing sweets were outliers. Mirchi is all about the spice, so take heed before entering. Their dishes come out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Mirchi Indian Street Food
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This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2025.