Pakistani Milky Sweets

I bought a box of Pakistani sweets from a confectionery shop in Balti Triangle.

I asked a guy in the shop to mix a bit of everything for £5. Actually he put more than that (about £5.20). I was about to pay that sum, but the guy told me not to worry about it and charged me only £5. I remember this, not because I was happy to save 20p, but from the way he did it, I sensed that he was proud of the products, and genuinely wanted us to try them.

And in fact, they were so good that surpassed greatly my expectation for this kind of sweets. Most of them are milk, bean-flour, or semolina based, and soaked in syrup. But different from the norm (to me), the taste of sugar did not overwhelm the taste of the other ingredients.





I am so happy with my new discovery!

Falooda

Yesterday I tried falooda for the first time. I have been wanting to try it for a long time, but never had the chance. Then, finally, I made up my mind.

(For those who doesn't have a clue about falooda, try wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falooda )

This is where I bought it: Yaardgar in Indoor Market. This is a sister outlet of the Yaardgar at the beginning of the Ladypool Road in Balti Triangle.

When I order one falooda, the guy at the counter put into a plastic cup a scoop of white noodles (in the container to the left), a couple of scoops of beige mass (to the right), and some basil seeds (not in the photo, but in the container to the right end) on top. Then some swirls of red colouring, maybe with some fruits flavour, and then mixed it with a spoon.





He closed the cup and put a thick straw through the cover. Then gave it to me.

I gave him £2, and he did not give me back 1p of rest. So the price is more £2 than £1.99 as is advertised.

I removed the cover and took this photo.




It is not appetising, is it?

Now the taste. The main component is the beige mass. It is something made of milk, but not exactly yogurt. It is creamier and heavier. More like sour cream, but it also has fresh cheese like quality. I think it contained also some cinnamon. It is quite sweet, but not more than Mac Shake. I did not like so much the texture of noodles; I would have preferred smoother stuff. Basil seeds did not contribute much, although they were visibly there.

I would have appreciated more if it were cold or chilled, but it was just lukewarm. Very sweet, fatty drink does not go a long way, if not chilled.





However, I managed to finish 90% of the content, and then I felt really fed up and threw the cup away.

Do you know some place where I can find better falooda? I would try again, if you know anything better.

Balti Triangle Trail 3

Ladypool road was rather sad, but we noticed also some new shops. One was Persian restaurant and the other was Lebanese fastfood shop. Are the people getting tired of balti?

Then I found this Indian sweets shop, Milan. I guess it has nothing to do with the Italian fashion capital, or Mr. Berlusconi's football club. In Birmingham, most of the Indian sweets shops are small, rather poor looking, but this outlook impressed us, so we enter. Anyway, there is another big sweets shop also on Stratford Rd.




Inside, the shop was full of sweets, and had also savouries like Samosa, bhaji etc.

Actually we entered to buy these baklava we saw through window. Dim chose some of them just to sample.



When we tasted them at home, we noticed that they were somehow different from the Middle Eastern Baklava. First of all, they were not syrupy.

Especially the rolled ones (left side in the box) were very dry, The square ones (center) had unrecognisable yellow crunchy paste (?) inside. The one looked like a bird nest tasted most similar to real kataifi. The dark brown squre was unknown to us. Dim was disappointed as they were different from the Greek baklava, but they were nice in their own right.



I bought Ras Malai. There were 4 pieces in the packet, and costed £1.8. Ras Malai can take various shapes, and this one is flat oblong. Ras malai are the spongy milk cakes soaked in sweet milk cream. This one tasted good, with a hint of cardamon. It was not too sweets as many of "Indian" sweets. I would buy again.



This is the end of our Balti Triangle trail, but in some time new ones will follow.