‘Cold-tooth’ madness with amazing ice-cream bars in ‘Suburb’s Queen’ (Bandra)

Ice-cream is everyone’s favourite pick when it comes to dessert. But which scoop to choose? fruity? sorbet? chocolate? Picking the right topping is even more complex job in itself. If you live in Mumbai (like me) you may have visited Bandra where plenty of ice-cream bars co-exist. This blog is my experience to decode the complex global menus and pick that perfect scoop.

I hope you will enjoy this blog!

The Icecream Factory, Carter Road, Bandra

This out-of-the-box name itself deserves your undissipated attention. You will experience ‘amazingly innovative’ ice-cream options at this joint near Carter Road. This funky parlour is known for its delicious nitrogen scoop and roll ice-cream in Bandra! They will spoil you for choice with their wide spread of options from ice-cream rolls to sundaes to waffles to shakes and more. The mesmerising experience of you “smoking” a cookie biscuit is just amazing! Ice-creams like nostalgic Parle G, spicy guava, wild berries with all possible fruits & chocolates options at your disposal will make surely make you go crazy.

I just hog on to my all-time favourite, the ‘blueberry cheesecake icecream’, loaded with blueberry fluid and cheesecake crumbs at my each visit. Believe me, your tongue will take a long enough time to fade away that maddening tangy flavour.

Must visit for all the cold-tooth maniacs!!!

Food: 5/5
Ambience: 5/5
Service: 4/5

Pricing: 4/5

6^th Street Yogurt, Hill Road, Bandra

This tiny hole-in-the-wall froyo bar on a busy single lane near St. Andrew’s Church, Bandra can be easily missed out. But I bet their froyos would force you to pull-over every-time you pass from that laneJ. Their Cranberry-Melon flavour is something you will cherish till your last swig. I personally recommend the combination of Cranberry-Melon with their tangy plum and wild berries toppings which make it an irresistible pick every time I visit them.

They also run random ‘Crazy Tuesday’ offers which are value for money. Their perfect balance of sweet and tangy flavour would make sure you to repeat your order. But remember, they don’t have zero calorie optionL. Their original flavour is also a great pick with a decent pricing.

It is a small outlet with limited flavours and toppings at their disposal but for the froyo fanatics, it is a great place to be.

Food: 5/5
Ambience: 3/5
Service: 4/5

Pricing: 5/5

Natural Ice-creams, Hill Road, Bandra

If you are in Bandra & an ice-cream lover, then missing Natural Ice Cream at Hill Road would not be a good idea. Once indulged into a cold rush of their tempting ‘desi’ flavours, this amazing ice-cream bar will pull you towards itself whenever you land in the ‘Suburb Queen’ (Bandra) territory. They are preponderantly known for its toothsome all-season flavours like Roast Almond, Tender Coconut and Anjeer. My personal favourites are Sitafal and Mango (seasonal). After experiencing almost all the flavours my inclination lies towards the seasonal pick. Though, they are not known for wide range of options as they hate experimenting 😉

Visit to relive the old and unaltered range of flavours!

Food: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5
Service: 4/5

Pricing: 5/5

Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt, Linking Road, Khar

It happened to be an unplanned visit to this open froyo bar which turned out to be a comely experience. With their amazingly new concept, they indulge you to make your own little cup of heaven. Their never ending spread of flavours and toppings will keep hitting your taste receptor cells till the last gulp.

The concept is very simple, you can decide the quantity of your choice, pull the vending machine to pick your own flavours and load your favourite toppings that suits you. They will only charge by the weight.

What fascinated me was the freedom to customise my own cups, from wide spread of flavours, to sprinkles, to nutella to chocolate sauce, to biscuit crumbles and alot more. I describe it as an unlimited options for customising your own cup of froyo!
The only downside is you don’t realize how much you’ve added until you’re billed and then the bill kind of shocks you.

We went all out with our yoghurt bowl and trust me it’s one of the best. A definite recommendation.

Food: 5/5
Ambience: 3/5
Service: 4/5

Pricing: 3/5

The Boston Cupcakery, 15^th Road, Bandra

This Dessert Parlor Bakery is much hyped for their trendy cupcakes but they also have some amazing ice-cream options in their menu. The most important thing is that you can kill your sweet craving with your favourite ice-cakes till 1.30 morning. You can’t be demanding any further. Can you?

One of one colleagues has strongly recommended their Signature Cupcakes which can be customised with some good ice-cream picks. I went for Chocolate Strawberry. It was recommended by the guy at the counter.

Their service is warm and they will proactively help you to decode their alien concept 😉

Though, I found it a much overhyped joint, but can drop in to suit your taste buds.

Food: 4/5
Ambience: 5/5
Service: 5/5

Pricing: 4/5

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Jalebis, at its best!

Old Famous Jalebi Wala at Chandi Chowk, Delhi

“I bet you can’t have just one!” This is the indeed an apt tag line for the The Old Famous Jalebi Wala. The pale golden-coloured randomly overlapped rings of deep-fried maida batter, soaked in sugar syrup will fill your mouth with a warm liquid of such excessive sweetness that will modesty blush in shame. The diabetic may find joy in just looking at its preparation.

It was one of the winter nights which took us at this place soon after our delicious mutton korma and biryani at Kareem’s. Now, we make a point to visit Jalebi Wala whenever we are around this joint, mind you, just to indulge in these tempting jalebis.

What Humayun’s Tomb is to Mughal architecture, Old Famous Jalebi Wala in Chandni Chowk is to jalebis (Rs 250/kg). The legendary establishment (circa 1884; founder: Nemchand Jain) stands at the turning to Dariba Kalan. The big-bellied cook performs live in front of customers. Like a magician, he squeezes out the batter from the hole of a muslin cloth-bag; his hands moving in circles all across the wok-like kadai.

As you sink your teeth into the piping hot jalebi, its crisp surface breaks open to release gooey sweetness. I recommend to have it with special rabri which would definitely enhance the taste of the hot jabelis.

 

Where Dariba Kalan Rd, Chandni Chowk Time 8.30 am to 10 pm Nearest Metro Station Chandni Chowk

HEAD TO	Shop No.1795, Dariba Corner, Dariba Kalan, Chandni Chowk
SAY HELLO AT	011 23256973
PAY INR	300 per kg
EXPLORE	OLD FAMOUS JALEBI WALA

 

The Right PR Strategy!

Most of the PR professionals in the developing countries like India, at times go wrong in formulating the communication strategy for their Brands. Their strategies are largely inclined towards focusing majorly on wide media visibility and periodically pushing their brands and spokespersons to relevant media. Though, many communication professionals across sectors have ably focused approach towards implementing this plan and some even manage to place their brands in the leading media spaces. But is this the right communication approach, always?

The development of any sound PR plan is a vital step towards improving your brand reputation and communicating relevant key messages to the prospective media and other target audiences. However, the recent communication trends created by most of the leading communication custodians show that ‘Brand Stability’ is as important objective as ‘Brand Visibility’. Without a focused PR plan on Internal Communication Process/ Crisis Management Module/ Monitoring & Measurement Tools, brands often find that their efforts devolve into a string of random, disconnected tactics, rather than a coherent strategy that delivers optimal outcomes to audiences and the company itself in the long run.

A well-thought PR plan establishes a foundation for the organization’s public relations program — which should have a balanced approach when it comes to external as well as internal communication. While focusing on media visibility is an important tool which cannot be compromised in today’s media driven era but a well organised communication plan would not miss to capture effective internal communication plan, a well-defined cohesive crisis module and a robust monitoring & measurement tools. These tools would not only help the relevant teams to mitigate any crisis situation with an astute matured approach but help to track and monitoring them effectively with proper team coordination.

• Focus on Crisis Management Protocol cannot be compromised

 There is a huge scope for the PR professionals & Corporate Communications department to evaluate and formulate an effective crisis management protocol. A crisis unmanaged can cause extreme damage to corporate reputation or even threaten the very survival of the company. Companies and businesses that do not have a crisis management plan in place are exposing themselves to an unnecessary risk, a liability few corporations can ill afford in an age of instant communications.

Thus, simply put Crisis Management Planning is the very brick and mortar for any viable business plan. A dedicated crisis module would help to pre-empt most of the crisis situations which shall help the business team to equip with the protocols and tools to deal with them – especially from a media standpoint. As after, it is the Media that can make or mar corporate reputation in today’s dynamically changing world. The Corporate Reputation is immensely critical if one wants to conduct a global business practice.

Proper formulated plan on these aspects would help the communication managers and the business / project teams to deal with probable crisis through crisis management and crisis recovery techniques with situation oriented tools like, Holding Statements and detailed FAQs in multiple situations – helping them cope that much better!

After all when bad things happen to good companies the ability to deal with the crisis, is what separates truly professional world class corporate giants from the rest.

• A tool that binds different departments

A lot have been written and spoken about the relevance and importance on internal communication and its growing expectance and sophistication, embracing the latest technologies, publishing trends and thinking around face to face communication.

Internal communication within a corporate organization is important for its cohesive functioning and ensuring transparency across multiple departments. Lack of coordination and internal information deficit can be a major source of internal friction and embarrassment for an organization.

Effective Internal Communication strategy would help the communication professionals and employees be aligned on various aspects. Having effective internal communication processes and channels in place is the only way to ensure seamless functioning of different departments towards common shared goals.

• Defined Monitoring & Measurement Tool

Monitoring & Measurement have always been a hectic job and not many take them seriously. PR professionals should always have robust monitoring & measurement tool that adapts to changing conditions and constantly allows for improvement. Monitoring and measurement not only equips your organization with the information you need to intelligently modify campaigns and tactics for increased impact but also keep professionals & business teams updated about the upcoming crisis.