Twenty two-years-old Astangeldi Orazov is from Ankara, Turkey. But it is in faraway Madurai that he is the cynosure of all eyes. He works at a newly-opened ice cream shop that has introduced dondurma (Turkish word for ice cream) to city folks.
Dressed in a bright red vest and cap, an attire from the Kahramanmaras, he hands over the dessert to the customer. But before that, comes a delightful performance. “Are you ready?” he asks in his heavily-accented English and begins working on the ice cream kept in a canister. He first stirs the sticky ice cream and pounds away at it with a long metal rod. And then with a swish, he extracts the entire mass of ice cream, which is easily larger than a big water melon. He swings it over the empty cone the wide-eyed customer holds.
Next follows an elaborate act of seamless tricks: one moment, he dangles a cone full of ice cream in front of the customer. As he/she tries to grab it, Astangeldi pulls it away in one quick move. Everyone around giggles as the customer fails to grab the cone again and again.
Visibly enjoying what he does, Astangeldi continues his showmanship for few minutes before giving a ‘hi-five’ and finally the ice cream cone with the ordered flavour to the much amused customer. The unusual presentation is like a juggler’s act and all fun and play.
“It is an experience with the stretchy and creamy ice cream which neither melts nor falls and dribbles down the cone,” says customer Uttam Kumar, a visual communication student. “Children are loving the visual treat as much as the adults,” says Ashok Kumar Bhandari, the franchise owner of the shop in Chokkikulam. He adds that Turkish ice cream has different flavours when compared to local fare. “The dondurma is made with salep , the roots of a wild orchid native to Turkey. It contains a starch that lends elasticity to the ice cream making it stretchable, flexible and resistant to melting.”
The flavours include sour raspberries and green apple to flowers and sea salt. Apart from the ice cream, there are varieties of Turkish coffee and Baklava, a traditional Middle Eastern dessert, that is like a pastry made of layers of filo filled with chopped nuts glued together with honey.
Less than two months old, the 18-seater shop has not really witnessed a heavy footfall yet. On weekdays, college students and young couples drop in, and weekends get somewhat crowded with families, according to Ashok. His team includes Chef Pawan Kumar from Uttarakhand and the another trained showman Sanjyal Aadi from Nepal besides Safijul Haque and Sheelu Kumar from Delhi, who have all trained hard in learning the exotic recipes and want more people to enjoy the taste.
Store manager Senthil Murugan says the menu is new and very limited at the moment with ice creams, pastries and coffee. It might still take time to enthuse city folks who are so used to their filter coffee. Customers watch the preparation of the Moroccon Masala or the Arabic Kahwa with super-finely ground coffee brewed in a copper pot called cezwa and sweetened and boiled several times on a heated bed of sand. The sweet and black Turkish coffee is doing well though, as people here find it little similar to sukku coffee, he adds.
“The fun tricks with the ice cream attract crowds and we also explain to them how Turkish coffee is considered a cure for respiratory problems,” signs off Ashok.
Work for your cone
@Twisting Scoops, 6, Venkatraman Road, Kamala 2nd Street, Chinna Chokkikulam
Open daily from 10.30 am to 10 pm
Price range: ₹80 to ₹1499
9894170666
