Head to Falooda Nation and slurp your pick

Drink or dessert? Undoubtedly a drink, in reality a dessert, is what falooda is all about.

Colourfully decked in long-necked glasses, the delicacy is served all over India, with the mixes changing from locale to locale. What’s got in Delhi, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru are all variants of the same mother drink. A treatise on the North and South Indian variants of falooda can be put down only after a few spoonfuls of the dessert are savoured.

Why take the trouble of hopping around from place to place in a bid to peg down local flavours when you can have them all from Falooda Nation, the signature falooda shop on Silk Street near the old Corporation office in Kozhikode, the melting pot of cuisines and cultures.

Behind the falooda shop was the idea of two enterprising youngsters and their relatives. When plans for a food enterprise were mooted, the lot fell in favour of falooda. As the concept gained acceptance, Falooda Nation’s managing partners M A Faizal and Mohammed Shad went on a long trip in quest of the falooda story. They crisscrossed the streets and alleys of the falooda-famous Mumbai, Chandigarh and other places where they stumbled upon the nuances of taste and the changing flavours of the rich dessert.

They stayed for long in exclusive falooda stalls, learnt all about the making units and equipment put to use in extremely busy outlets, tasted a lot of faloodas, talked to the chefs and familiarised themselves with the mix that makes falooda an exclusive delicacy.

Their homework done well, the duo got back to Kozhikode with countless recipes for a zillion variants of falooda. They came out with their own recipes, made a mix and match and came up with a menu. Thus was born Falooda Nation in Kozhikode. Another outlet of their falooda shop was recently opened at the Mall of Travancore in Thiruvananthapuram. More outlets will soon be opened in Kochi, Bengaluru and Dubai.

35 flavours

Falooda is a mix of vermicelli, ice cream, crushed ice, nannari (sarasaparilla), rose syrup and nuts. Though the North Indian variant sticks faithfully to the original recipe, down South, there are plenty of fruits, dry or fresh in your falooda. Falooda Nation sells 35 different varieties of the dessert. And these are categorised into four tastes -- the Classic, Great Indian, League of Falooda Nation and Seasonal.

Eight flavours including pista, strawberry, chocolate, butterscotch and black current come under Classic Falooda.

While the 10 Great Indian Faloodas include flavours like Mumbai Ka King, Malai kulfi magic, shalimar, kaju, pyare gulab jamun and rabdi, the 11 League of Falooda Nation include mango bite, Spanish love, fruit punch and choco loco.

The Seasonal faloodas have a line up of fruits like custard apple, mango, strawberry and jackfruit. Any fruit that is available seasonally goes into this category.

Jil Jil Jigarthanda

Jigarthanda is a cool summer drink. The drink, with its origin in Madurai, has badam (almond) for its base. The add-ons are thickened milk, ice cream and badam flakes.

The cool concoction is specially made to suit the temperatures of the temple town.

Other drinks which get you into a state of slurpy bliss are the countless shakes, smoothies, fruit smoothies, concentrated fresh fruit juice, fruit salads and the signature sundae specials like ice cream soda, candy crush, litchi butterscotch, chiku smile and a whole lot of others.

It’s not just the youngsters who love to chill out at the falooda joint, it is a hot favorite of seniors and elders too going by the number of the venerable old who troop in. Call it nostalgia for those days of yore when they were also once young and in love with falooda.

Falooda Nation is open from 12.30 pm to 11 pm. The managing partners say the good name the joint enjoys is solely because of their no-compromise-on-quality stand.

Home delivery is also offered. For details: 0495-4850840.

Falooda specials

Death by Chocolate: This is a yummy mix of hot chocolate, brownies, peanuts, honey and cherries served with vanilla ice cream.

Kesar pista: Kesar pista, saffron, kesar-pista malai and kulfi go into this falooda.

Candy-crush sundae: This is a special dessert for kids. Strawberry, vanilla ice cream, mango chocolate, white chocolate, brownies and jelly are the main ingredients.

Origin of falooda

The sweet and savory drink-dessert traces its origins to the old Persia (today’s Iran). Going by the name of faloodeh, the dessert was extremely popular there. The Persians indulged in this drink at their New Year celebrations. The drink dates back to 400 BC when it existed in several variants.

History has two versions for falooda’s popularity in India. One says Muslim merchants who came to India between the 16th and 18th centuries introduced the delicacy to the foreign land and the other says it was the Mughals who brought falooda to India and gave it a royal tag.

Disputes and assumptions aside, it was actually the Mughal rulers who gave falooda its present day celebrity status. Wherever they went, their falooda followed too.

Emperor Akbar’s son Jehangir was crazy about faloodas and loved to savour different flavors. The falooda is available in quite a lot of countries, in different avatars though. In the Philippines, it’s “Halo Halo”, “Chendol” in Singapore, “Ice kasang” in Malaysia and “Aloodha” in Mauritius.

How to make Chef Special Fruit Punch Falooda

Ingredients:

A) Fresh fruits:

½ an apple

1 kiwi

2 strawberries (small)

Ice creams

1 scoop each of mango, strawberry and litchi.

Papaya, pineapple and banana slices cut in cubes.

B) Others:

10 gm cashew nuts.

20 gm dry fruits.

1 tablespoon honey.

Sugar as required.

Semiya, khus-khus, rose syrup as required.

Method:

Boil the semiya and set aside.

Boil pineapple and allow it to cool.

Mix honey in sugar syrup.

Add all the fruit cubes with the sugar syrup and refrigerate for two hours.

Pour a few spoons of rose syrup into the falooda glass.

Add two spoons of khus-khus and a bit of semiya on top of the rose syrup, followed by mango and strawberry ice cream scoops.

The next topping is the dry fruit mix and the litchi ice cream scoop.

On top of this comes the cashew nuts, strawberry and banana pieces.

Lace it up with the honey and garnish with kiwi cuts.

(Chef Special Fruit Punch Falooda courtesy of: Rajan Tamang and Sharath Kumar, executive chefs, Falooda Nation, Kozhikode.)