BackHUNGER GAMES: The ice-cream hunters
Sitaphal, Anjeer, Banana, Mangowe spent our Saturday trying our different fruity ice-creams at two new spots in Delhi
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It was a friend’s post on Facebook talking about how she had ice-cream for breakfast and a tiny bum injury that Kiddo had “which would feel better only after many cups of ice cream" that turned our last weekend into a ice-cream hunting spree.
This past Saturday, we braved mad pre-Diwali traffic jams across Delhi to try out two ice-cream parlours, both of which are newish to Delhi. And at the end of this “cold feast treat" weekend, I realised that I still had miles to go so far as educating my 10-year-old’s taste buds go. After all, if after 4 cones of different flavours, all she has to say is that ‘I think the soft serve at McDonald’s is the best,’ then we are really in need for more palate educating experiences
First we trekked to the JMD Mall, Masjid Moth, Greater Kailash-2 to try out Natural Ice Cream. The brand has travelled all the way from Mumbai and opened their first outlet in Delhi last week. As someone who studied in Mumbai and lived there for a few years, Natural Ice Cream was a staple specially since there was huge shop in Juhu, where I worked. I wanted to try the anjeer, chickoo, watermelon and sitaphal flavours again. Kiddo was a little apprehensive when she heard that all these ice creams had fruit flavours and was relieved to find some chocolate on the menu. The store was unusually crowded for 3pm on a not-so-hot Saturday and we waited in line for about 10 minutes for our turn to come. At ₹ 55 for a scoop, Natural ice cream seemed well priced and we felt no guilt in ordering four flavours after trying out at least 7 flavours (including strawberry, coconut and watermelon). I had a scoop of Sitaphal and Anjeer each. And Kiddo ordered Mango and Chococream. I was tempted to ask for a coconut scoop as well, but two scoops were more than enough for a Saturday afternoon treat, especially since we had another new ice-cream parlour to visit. For my daughter, Mango was a sureshot winner, but Chococream was not much appreciated. For me, the fact that these ice-creams were not overly sweet was a treat in itself. With common consensus, we decided to take a 275ml tub of mango ice-cream home.
Next, we headed to Hauz Khas Village, to Hokey Pokey. Theirs was a small, hole-in-the-wall store and frankly, the ice-cream flavours did not impress us much. The Strawberry Cheesecake was rejected because it was a little on the sour side, French vanilla was too plain. Kiddo opted for Alpen Butterscotch without any of the fancy dressings (oreo cookies, choco spinkles, gummy fruits, etc) minus the waffle cup and later grumbled about having to eat “butterscotch" flavour at a fancy store. I settled for the Banana Caramel Crunch, but after getting reacquainted with Natural’s fruity ice creams, this perhaps was not the right choice. Down by almost ₹ 250, we left Hokey Pokey a little dissatisfied. But perhaps the blame for that lies with an ovedose of ice cream flavours on a single afternoon rather than the flavours themselves.
This weekly series, which appears on Tuesdays, looks at what’s new with food and drink, and how we are interacting with it.
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