INTERNATIONAL FOOD CENTRE, MARGATE. Serious about your food? prepare to meet your master.

If you love cooking and you don't shop at the International Food Centre on Northdown road then you need to. LISTEN UP!! 

Step inside for foodie heaven.

I will write a separate review on Northdown road, because it warrants it. 

But for the uninitiated, Northdown road is part of Margate CT9 postcode, a second shopping street in an area called Cliftonville.

Once a thriving hub of business and fashion, it has connecting roads leading the sea which are lined with huge victorian villas, once mansions. 

Those properties became guest houses in the British seaside holiday boom. 

The British seaside holiday demand nosedived in the 70s and 80's which decimated the local economy. 

The once thriving Nothdown road became a hot-spot for crime, the old guest houses became bedsits, slums and crack dens. 

The London council authorities sent their problem families to rehome there. It became a no go area.

That was then, this is now.. 

Somethings happening here, what is ain't exactly clear... Stop, wait a minute. look around, everyone see what's going down... 

It was if I was returning to the scene of an accident, and wanting to check if it was safe, that the dust had settled... 

(dammit, I'm going to use that in my review of Northdown Road) 

Northdown road has just ranked number 8 in the coolest places to visit.... IN THE WORLD! 

I had to see what there was to warrant such an accolade, and im so glad I did! 

Do you love watching Saturday/Sunday morning cooking programs? Indeed are you putting the new Masterchef series on record? 

If so you might watch and think how something looks nice, oooh I could cook that, but when you did your weekly shop there wasn't really the right ingredients and so you never bothered? 

If this is you, then go to The International Food Centre. 

Sitting on the corner of  Northdown road and Warwick road, it is very hard to miss, but what is in there? 

I'm going to tell you... It was everything you thought you wanted and then more. 

It has pulled all the ingredients from every major culinary cook book, and all the cook books you are yet to discover and put them all in there for you to pick from. 

I does have a large section of everyday items but as you move through the store everything screams buy me, try me! 

Fresh vegetables, but one's you don't get in supermarkets, fruits you've never seen, tomatoes in colours you didn't know you could get,

mushrooms which if seen grown in the ground you would stay clear of in case they sent you to another dimension.. Different fresh chillies and herbs in bundles. 

Next is cured meats, cheese, a butchers counter, I literally could go on and on.. 

Every type of pasta you could imagine (the nice stuff as well, not that weird orange stuff you get everywhere else... 

Every type of grain of rice and pulses from around the world, And then all the jars of sauces. 

It's all in its section, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabian, European etc etc.. 

Am I clear enough... It has everything!!!!! 

Sorry I got carried away, but they also do catering sized containers of different olive oils, 10kg of marinated olives... Its AMAZING! 

Phew! I never knew or appreciated what was on my door step. 

If I'm honest I am a little bit scared of going in for a bag of rice, because you and know I won't leave with just a bag of rice.!