Food Trail Pakistan: Karachi

I must confess, I am one of those people who feels that the winter is the best time of the year for ice cream. As a result, to me it makes perfect sense for someone to be opening a gelateria in December. After all, how cold does it ever actually get in Karachi? As it turned out, the soft opening of this place coincided almost perfectly with a cool snap in the city of Trumpian climate change tweet proportions. Which worked perfectly for me. Amiamo (Italian for 'we love') Gelato is situated on Lane 1, Bukhari Commercial. In the best tradition of Karachi directions, it is the same galli as Neeco's and Bina Khan, a couple of doors before Dialogue. I wanted to say it's 'tucked away', but it isn't really - the way DHA's commercial areas are structured, everything feels tucked away, this is actually one one of the larger lanes and not at all difficult to find.  It's a small space (think the original Zamzama outlet of Espresso) - most of the space

Normally, when you (grudgingly, and with the right level of embarrassment) admit that you like your coffee black, with no sugar, in a nation of tea drinkers (preferably with enough milk to turn the complexion of the drink into a shade that would be acceptable to rishta aunties when screening prospecting spouses, and just as sweet), you are met with a response that would not feel out of place in that scene from a 70’s Nadeem / Shabnam blockbuster where the “side heroine” learns that her spouse has tragically died in a car accident, and proceeds to smash her bangles at the nearest doorway. This disbelief / anguish is rapidly followed up with revulsion: it’s so bitter! How can you countenance pouring this poison down your throat? Plus, don’t you know coffee is bad for you? As a result, it takes a special kind of resilience (read: dhitai ) to be an avowed coffee drinker in these parts. It also takes skin of elephantine thickness to be able to smile through a conversation where o

It's official. The Posh Popsicle Wars are here.  In the last few months, two serious contenders have 'popped' up in the city, both of them offering premium lollies, promising lots of pure fruit and few unhealthy additions. This post will be a standalone overview of the second mover, with a follow up side by side flavour comparison coming towards the end of this post.  Ice Pop Co popped up on my Facebook feed (as these things tend to do). It's a takeaway only place, with delivery in 2 hours. As one does, we ordered one of each flavour they had available to try the offering. Naturally, having been to Lush Crush earlier, whether we liked it or not we were comparing the offering to that. As a result, you will see me benchmark to Lush Crush throughout this post.  Delivery came through as promised, in two hours. The first thing I noticed was the packaging, nice and colourful - the paper bags were really robust and overall gave a really 'professional' v