Chin Chin Choo
Or rather Chin Chin Labs. Which is where I found myself dragged by two mates about a week ago.
Chin Chin Choo is completely unrelated but makes a nice alliteration for my blog title. For those who are interested, Chin Chin Choo occurs in the first line of a famous 1958 Indian song from the film Howrah Bridge.
Spring had finally hit London for a day and a couple of us decided to try Venezuelan arepas at the food market in Camden. We chose Sunday as it was supposed to be sunny. Predictably the market was heaving but we navigated out way through the crowds, grabbed some arepas and even found ourselves a vantage point looking out at the market and the canal.
Not long after two of my mates started drumming support to go round the corner to Chin Chin labs and try their much-discussed ice-cream that is frozen using liquid nitrogen. Now I have never been a big ice-cream fan even when I was growing up in India. I probably ate it too slowly so most of it would melt in the searing heat of Delhi. Some of my childhood memories are of orange ice lollies melting all over my dress and leaving me with sticky hands.
In cool, temperate London, very occasionally I treat myself by having the heating at full blast in my flat and biting slowly into a dark chocolate Magnum (yumm). I almost never eat ice cream outdoors (weird but true). However the sun on Sunday and the enthusiasm of my foodie-friends melted my resolve. Hence I found myself joining a loooooong queue in front of Chin Chin Labs.
We chose our flavours in the queue:
Last time I was in India during the mango season ( typically June/ July) was more than three years ago in 2009. As I stood in the queue I had a sudden, inexplicable craving for mangoes. While my favorite variety is the 'chausa' or a really ripe 'langda', at this point even the thought of the slightly too-sweet Alphonso made my tongue tingle. And the ice-cream sure did not disappoint!
All the flavours were nice and creamy to start of with. Having not read the description in the shop properly I got an unexpected jolt with my second bite. I bit into a sugary shard and suddenly tasted chilli. For a while I thought something had gone askance in the lab and I should be going back to them. Only much later did I realise that this was indeed the desired effect in a typical chin-chin ice cream bite: sweet, creamy and occasionally a chilli kick.
So would I recommend it to others? Absolutely. Sunday is busy so if you go on a weekday you can ask them loads of questions on the process too.
Would I go there again? Ummm....maaaaaybe. You see, following the ice cream extravaganza we all decided to walk up the canal which was fun and refreshing but also a bit windy by then. Since then I've had a bad cold that I have yet to recover fully from. Perhaps I will wait for a genuine 20'C plus day before doing this again. Oh and that's 68F plus for those who have still not caught up with the Celsius system that the rest of the world uses. (You know who you are!)
Chin Chin Choo is completely unrelated but makes a nice alliteration for my blog title. For those who are interested, Chin Chin Choo occurs in the first line of a famous 1958 Indian song from the film Howrah Bridge.
Spring had finally hit London for a day and a couple of us decided to try Venezuelan arepas at the food market in Camden. We chose Sunday as it was supposed to be sunny. Predictably the market was heaving but we navigated out way through the crowds, grabbed some arepas and even found ourselves a vantage point looking out at the market and the canal.
Not long after two of my mates started drumming support to go round the corner to Chin Chin labs and try their much-discussed ice-cream that is frozen using liquid nitrogen. Now I have never been a big ice-cream fan even when I was growing up in India. I probably ate it too slowly so most of it would melt in the searing heat of Delhi. Some of my childhood memories are of orange ice lollies melting all over my dress and leaving me with sticky hands.
In cool, temperate London, very occasionally I treat myself by having the heating at full blast in my flat and biting slowly into a dark chocolate Magnum (yumm). I almost never eat ice cream outdoors (weird but true). However the sun on Sunday and the enthusiasm of my foodie-friends melted my resolve. Hence I found myself joining a loooooong queue in front of Chin Chin Labs.
We chose our flavours in the queue:
- Alphonso Mango Brulee
- Valrhona Chocolate
- Burnt Butter Hot Cross Bun
Last time I was in India during the mango season ( typically June/ July) was more than three years ago in 2009. As I stood in the queue I had a sudden, inexplicable craving for mangoes. While my favorite variety is the 'chausa' or a really ripe 'langda', at this point even the thought of the slightly too-sweet Alphonso made my tongue tingle. And the ice-cream sure did not disappoint!
All the flavours were nice and creamy to start of with. Having not read the description in the shop properly I got an unexpected jolt with my second bite. I bit into a sugary shard and suddenly tasted chilli. For a while I thought something had gone askance in the lab and I should be going back to them. Only much later did I realise that this was indeed the desired effect in a typical chin-chin ice cream bite: sweet, creamy and occasionally a chilli kick.
So would I recommend it to others? Absolutely. Sunday is busy so if you go on a weekday you can ask them loads of questions on the process too.
Would I go there again? Ummm....maaaaaybe. You see, following the ice cream extravaganza we all decided to walk up the canal which was fun and refreshing but also a bit windy by then. Since then I've had a bad cold that I have yet to recover fully from. Perhaps I will wait for a genuine 20'C plus day before doing this again. Oh and that's 68F plus for those who have still not caught up with the Celsius system that the rest of the world uses. (You know who you are!)
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