Nirula's - Ice Creams n' More

It bought fast food and quality ice creams to Delhi, and it still holds its own against the Mcdonalds and KFCs.
Nirulas started out as.....
I have been going to Nirulas ever since I have been living in Delhi, and it continues to be best choice for some great ice cream and with branches all over the city it's easy to find one. The restaurants themselves are lively and have an indianised feel about them, with the walls covered in typical Delhi culture. The staff is generally quite nice, and have been quite patient with me as i try out 3-4 flavors of ice cream before choosing one. The food consists of essentially three sections, the now ubiquitous burgers,pizzas and foot long; indian thalis and kebabs and the desserts like ice creams, shakes and pastries.
Of the first section, their omlette burger and aloo grill burger stand out, the former because Nirulas is the only fast food joint offering an omlette burger and the latter as the aloo is actually grilled, not deep fried patties as in McDonalds. The Big Boy burger and the innovative Nutribyte burgers are good too, the rest of the fare is essentially the normal fast food stuff, nothing special. In the Indian section, the north Indian dishes are comparable to what you'd get at a decent north Indian restaurant, but do try their naan and dal makhni mini meal, it's great value for money at 30 bucks, but if you are looking for quality north indian cuisine, there are better places.
Ice Creams - Now this is what's good, real good!, to even compare Nirulas to kwality walls and mother dairy would be worse than an insult, if you have never tried anything other than the thelewalla fare, then you have been missing out on some of the best ice cream in delhi.
My personal favorite flavors would be Delhi Delight, Butterscotch Crunch, Tooti Frooti, Thandai and the Jamoca Almond Fudge. Wait, ain't I missing something?......hell i am!, The Hot Chocolate Fudge(HCF)!, arguably the best ice cream sundae I've ever eaten, I've heard of people coming to niruals only to sample this beauty. Served in a tall glass, with three scoops of alternating vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce and topped with roasted cashew nuts, this is simply divine!, these days they even serve a single and double scoop version at lower prices of around Rs 50 and Rs 75, the real thing comes for around 100 bucks, I'd definitely recommend you go for the triple scoop, trust me 100 bucks is worth it for the experience of digging into 3 layers for gooey chocolate swirling with vanilla ice cream. Also noteworthy (though not one of my favorites) is nutty buddy, which as you can guess from the name is full of nuts, it's essentially a nut coated scoop of chocolate ice cream, i personally feel that the nuts are in excess and kill the whole crunchy-nuts-in-soft-ice-cream experience, but a lot of folk absolutely love it, so give it a go. A great new addition is chillo, a low cost mango-vanilla/strawberry-vanilla cone for just 15 bucks - great when you feel guilty for shelling out 40 bucks for good ice cream.
The shakes, i feel, are over priced at around 70-80 bucks and the pastries ar limited in variety but passable in taste, it's the usual chocolate,black forest, pineapple fare.
They also sell home made cookies, chocolates,sauces and condiments, though as i have never bought them so i can't comment on them. Even though Nirulas has got some competition with Baskin Robbins setting base here, but the HCF and the indigenous flavors keep it a favorite for ice cream fans. I plan to do Niruals vs Baskin Robbins Ice Cream shootout, the Ice Cream Wars in the future.
A personal Tip to get great HCF at home : Get a tub of vanilla ice cream, from Nirulas, this is the secret to their great HCF, these days they have offer of getting a vanilla tub free with a premium flavor tub, all for 150 bucks - sweet!, so once you got your ice cream, get some chocolate - dairy milk will do fine, but nestle works better, now google for hot chocolate fudge recipe, sort around till you find one which suits your kitchen inventory, you generally need milk, sugar, butter and maybe cream - all readily available, then follow instructions on the website and prepare your own fudge sauce, trust me it's quite easy, took me 15 minutes to get a great sauce, just keep in mind to melt the chocolate in a microwave or a double broiler. Finally, chop some cashew nuts and roast till brown, now all you need to do is take a tall glass and dish out some great home made HCF!, you can easily get around 3-4 glasses and end up saving 250 bucks and hey you get a tub of premium flavor ice cream too, now that is value for money!
Directions: Well no need for map and directions, it's hard not to spot a Nirulas somewhere in Delhi!
They have got a great website from where you can even order your food, www.nirulas.com