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Soft and creamy!
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As summer sets in, Rahul Verma finds relief in the delightful ice creams of Maa Shreedi at Bazaar Sitaram
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The weather was such that I needed to douse myself with a fire extinguisher. And since that wasn’t possible, I did the next best thing – I had an ice cream. With global warming taking shape in the form of rising temperatures this past week, I was in a bit of a quandary. I didn’t want to eat kababs, kormas and biryanis and whet the heat. Nor did I want to have those fried kachoris and bedmis, or even aloo tikkas. A heavy meal was out of the question. So what does one do to sustain oneself and one’s column?
How to reach
That was when I remembered Maa Shreedi, a small ice cream parlour in Bazaar Sitaram. I had seen it earlier during one of my gastronomic jaunts there. I had noticed that it was a fairly new place, and had a modern and neat board that advertised a wide range of ice creams. It is an easy place to locate. If you are at the Chawri Metro station, start walking towards Sitaram Bazaar. After about 300 yards or so, you will find the parlour on your left. The address is 3114, Bazaar Sitaram. I went there one hot afternoon, and met the owner, Bhanwar Singh. The family has an ice cream business in Lonavala in Maharashtra. Some years ago, they decided that they needed to open an outlet in Delhi. And that’s how Maa Shreedi came up in Old Delhi. They have all kinds of ice creams – from the simple vanilla, mango and strawberry to gulkand, mango lichi, panch ratna and chappan bhog. The usual suspects are there – such as choco chop, butter scotch and black currant. But they also have all kinds of surprises, including something called sweet dream, special golden pulp, gulab kaju and special Lonavala.
The wonderful thing about the ice cream is that it’s not packed hard like most commercially-produced ices. Instead, it is soft and almost melting. These days, an ice cream can be so hard that I often feel that instead of giving wooden spoons, the manufacturers should supply us with ice picks to help us break the solid chunk. Maa Shreedi’s ice cream gave my teeth no trouble – it truly was creamy and soft. The other great thing about the ice cream is that it is stuffed with goodies – from roasted almond and pistachio pieces to plump cashew nuts. A small cup is for Rs.20, and a one-litre bucket is for Rs.190.
Ice creams tell the story of India’s evolution. When we were kids, we would eat some kind of an icicle on a stick for a few paise. Then we got hooked on to the branded ice creams. Nirula’s in Delhi told us that ice cream could come in flavours that you had never thought of. And then came the MNCs with their products, and prices. So, in the midst of all that, it’s great to see a place like Maa Shreedi. The product is great, the prices are reasonable and the enterprise is praiseworthy. Though I have never been a great ice cream fan, I will keep going back there. I think I have found my answer not just to global warming, but to globalisation as well.
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Metro Plus
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