The vagaries of Mess food

In the last few days, there has been quite a ruckus about the quality of food in the mess, not to mention the presence of 'animal protein' i.e insects in the food. Several photos of the debacle have already come up on our newsgroups.
Somehow the very perception of a "mess" has eternally been an eternal mess(pun intended). Earlier memories of mess food include NIT mess food which, to say the least , was not something I would wish for my worst enemies, leave alone poor frail engineering students such as myself. Very quickly early on during ragging, our seniors used to take us to the local canteen known in our campus as Jhoops and open accounts for us at Jhoops. That benevolent man used to supply us on credit. For the next four years, it would be the eternal adda spot, the place where we sat down to finish assignments or just plain laze around. The ledger books would get thicker with our entries as we accumulated credit, paying for it at the end of a term or sometimes after we got a job. My final year was spent half the time at Jhoops lazing around between my rare classes. Sometimes even the profs turned up for tea there!
I miss the concept of a canteen/ jhopdi/dhaba here at IIM I.I cant have tea or snacks when I like. Punctuality is a must. If I come before 8:00 AM or after 10:00 AM, I dont get breakfast and so on. The night mess is ok but it neither has the ambience nor the cost benefits of the dhaba. Frankly even now, nothing beats a cup of simple chai along with a Bun sandwich and Todphod at the night jhoops(cheap at 8 bucks for the lot).