Kulfi Auto

What would you do to a rich, creamy, yummy, 6 inches of nutty delight in your hand? Don’t look at me like that!!! I would slurp the hell out of it..! And wish for 9’’. Confused..? I’m talking about everyone’s after meal favourite, “Kulfi”.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back to Taste Buds. We will continue to bring forth our views from the City of Destiny. And in today’s special let us take a peek at the 6’’ wonder (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist myself; that was the last time).

On a lazy Sunday evening (Like all the other 364 lazy days) we were sitting in the beach, staring at the sea and humming to the melody of the waves. All of a sudden, one of my friends said “Let’s go, I will treat you with something which you have never tasted in Vizag”. In the next 5 minutes were nearing at this place where they were selling food on an auto, my initial thoughts were “What a jerk!!!” Starting that evening till now, I would have slurped off at least 100 Kulfis; I’m talking two years time, which on an average is at least one Kulfi every week.

So, what is a Kulfi? What is it made out of? And what place are we talking about?

Kulfi is a culinary sweet delight of the sub-continental people, it is super simple to make and super easy to eat. It is a traditional dessert which is centuries old, so don’t even think about it, yes, don’t ask me who invented it. But I will tell you how it’s made. There are only two organic ingredients required for this recipe; Full Cream Milk and Sugar. And for props? You would need some moulds silly. Ever heard this from your grandmother? “Patience is the greatest virtue of all successful people”. Yes you guessed it right, you have to boil the milk to one third’s its volume and add sugar to it. Mix it well, cool it down and freeze it.

Now that’s the most basic Kulfi idea, as time progressed people started experimenting with food and now you have Kulfi in various flavours and toppings such as Saffron, Malai and various fruit flavours; and  Pistachio, Almonds, Sugar Coated Fennel to name some as toppings.

So this place, like many street food places is being managed on an auto rickshaw. In a chat with the owner, he mentioned that he is managing this Kulfi Auto for the past 9 years in the city and he is one of the 250 push carts/mobile eating joints on the beach. He was pretty talkative and open to tell us about his saga. Nevertheless let’s continue with our own little saga here. He had limited varieties of Kulfis but they were a true delight on our taste buds. Our personal favourite was the dry fruit Kulfi which is filled with almonds. He charged us INR 20 apiece for the dry fruit Kulfi, the plain one was INR 15 and the costliest of all was matka at INR 50. At this price and taste, this probably is one of the better Kulfis on the street.

His place is at the roundabout in front of The Park Hotel on the other side of the road. The GPS coordinates of the place are 17.722299, 83.335973 (17°43’20.3”N 83°20’09.5”E). The place is open from 6PM to 10 PM every day.

**Spoiler Alert!** Ever been to this place called Barbeque Nation in Vizag? The place has an amazing variety of Kulfi on the menu. You can literally custom design your Kulfi with flavours and toppings. It is covered in the buffet, so you can be at your creative best. All you need is INR 600* for the buffet and a little place in your belly after trying their starters.