I hopped over to Amore at Carter road to meet Rushina of Perfect Bites. Rushina is this amazingly enterprising lady who has made a career out of her passion for food. She writes. She cooks. she consults.
I met the chefs of Amore there including Chef Costanzo who divides his time between Italy and Mumbai. He runs what he calls an ‘ice cream shop’ near Genoa in Italy. His father in law has been in the trade of making ice creams for fifty years.
My father in law has loved eating ice creams for more than fifty years.
Amore has launched organic gelatos. I was told that these were India’s first organic gelatos, and, dare we say, ice cream. I thought that anything ‘organic’ would be expensive. Turns out that the organic gelatos are priced the same as the regular ones at Amore.They said that they absorb the costs to promote organic food. ‘Organic’, as Rushina pointed out, is how India used to grow its produce in any case.
I tried an organic lemon ginger gelato. As expected, the ginger gave a nice sharp bite. I thought it would be too strong for a full portion. I was mistaken. I tried a a bit more. The ginger was subtle and paired beautifully with the lemon to give a nice cooling feel. I can see that as the perfect companion in Muggy Mumbai.
I then had a bit of the organic vanilla gelato made with vanilla pods. Man was I blown away or what? At the risk of sounding like Vir Sanghvi, I must say that you need to have tasted real vanilla to know what rubbish synthetic vanilla is. The taste was strong, sweet, matronly, loving. A heady rush as over powering as that of one’s first love. An explosion of taste which seemed so unlikely from the virginal white gelato.
Amore had flavours such as litchi and coconut in the organic range too. Not my favourite flavours and I gave them a miss. There was a organic gulkhand too which was on the sweeter side. They will alternate the flavours from what I understand.
Rushina told me about her favourite combo of Amore’s strawberry sorbet and chocolate sorbetto. The strawberry at Amore is an incredibly fresh gelato and you feel like you are actually biting into strawberries straight from the farm with each mouthful. The chocolate sorbetto was a bit strong though and overpowered the strawberry. So I suggested mixing strawberry with a hazelnut chocolate flavour. That worked wonderfully. Rushina agreed. she packed some for her long ride home. I guess there are some things you can teach a master too 😉
In case you are wondering, Rushina hurt her hand after cooking for seventy (!!!!) people on her brother’s birthday. I found the menu on F B: “Menu for brother’s Birthday (Noodle canapes, Cauliflower and Okra Tempura, Rice paper rolls, Khausuey, Glass noodle salad, Green Thai Curry, Lemongrass scented rice) CHECK! Decadent Desserts for NB Demo (Chilli, Citrus and Ricotta Phyllo pie, spicy mascarpone layered pudding, white chocolate & green …tea truffles, Caramelised grapefruit carpacio w chilli balsamic glaze, cream, vanilla sugar) CHECK!”
I enjoyed meeting up with these lovely folks from the world of food. And was thrilled when Chef Costanza removed the glass pane so that I could click the gelatos. (I borrowed Rushina’s pink camera to pose.)
Lesson for the day, there is no therapy like losing oneself in gelato to get over ‘the moments that made up a dull day’.