Cakes & Shakes - Wengers and Keventers

First lemme start off with Wengers - The Pastry Shop: Imagine a pastry factory, not your regular pastry shop when you think of Wengers, 'cuz that's the first feeling you will get when you walk in, feast your eyes and salivate on 45 types of pastries, a dozen varieties of cakes, handmade chocolates, quick bites and breads, confused with what to eat, trust me, you will not be the only one who thinks, I wish i could eat it all. The Store has a regal feel to it and still exudes the classic old world charm of Lutyen's Delhi, from the twin Doormen pull apart the door for you, to the staff dressed in identical white coats, the place seems from the bygone era. Wengers was established in the Raj Era by a Swiss couple, sometime later they sold the shop to its Indian manager, whose family has been running the store since then. The shop is especially decked up for festivals like Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day with their trademark plum cakes, Easter eggs and heart shaped pastries being sought after by revelers. Throughout the year, the shop keeps innovating and coming up with new pastries, and most work. I have probably tried out every pastry there and around 80 % of them were delicious, some of my favorite ones are Tiramisu - The coffee and cream tango perfectly giving and great aftertaste, Doughnut - Just perfect, chocolatey and hard outside and soft and spongy inside, Mille Feuillet - A wonderful hard crust pastry.....the list goes on, the only thing i haven't liked is the fruit bar, it seemed chewy and pretty tasteless, trust me one can safely pick up whatever catches the eye here and not be disappointed. Now moving onto their cakes, they are best tried out with a group of friends or obviously on occasions, the butterscotch and but you must try their Plum Cakes on Christmas, they are simply amazing, I finished one all by myself, just couldn't stop eating it. The superstar of the snacks menu is the Shammi Kebab, fried and seasoned just right it's delicious, the quiches and baguettes are good too, I haven't tried out the others yet. Wengers makes some good handmade chocolates and cookies, which although a bit expensive make for perfect gifts to family and friends, but I've eaten better chocolates at Chocolatiers in CR Park. If you have never tried out fresh oven baked gourmet breads, forever satisfied with those Plastic packed, square cut ones which you smear with butter and jam before gobbling up mindlessly then this is the place to start. Choose from around 8 varieties of breads some of which are spiced, embedded with dried veggies and some sweets breads, my favorite is the Olive and Sun Dried tomatoes Foccacia, it makes for the most delicious midnight hunger killer, just eat it straight out of the fridge, health freaks will like multi grain and farmhouse bread, the best part is that all these are a steal for around 25 to 30 bucks. Most pastries are between 30 to 40 bucks and cakes start from around 200 bucks. Guess what goes best with a nice, sweet n' gooey pastry........a big, frothy and chilled bottle of milkshake. Although there are many branches of Keventers in the city, but the Connaught Place one always remains the most crowded, being a haven for thirsty CP dwellers and of course it makes the perfect complement for next door Wengers. Post noon time and especially when CP is crowded, the place is qued up, with the line of humans stretching well into the road. The shop is generally manned by a middle aged guy who (I think) has super quick hands – he takes your money, opens up his drawer, hands out your change – all in 5 seconds, flat and he does all this amidst the chaos of people shouting “ek butterscotch, do vanilla…..”. The menu includes milkshakes, ice creams and ice cream shakes all in the flavors of butterscotch, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, coffee and pineapple. Keventers also has Sugar free shakes and Cassata slice. Something I found out from personal experience is that you can also have custom made ice cream shakes like strawberry milkshake with a slice of chocolate ice cream, and that too for the same price as a regular ice cream shake, just tell the guy at the counter exactly what you want.

Snacks available are limited to chips, patties, pizza sandwich, bread pakora and veg seekh kebab roll, I personally have never bothered with them, especially with Wengers next door, but they’ll do just fine if you need something cheap and filling.
Prices : Ice creams and Shakes are for Rs 25, while ice cream shakes come for 45 bucks, all snacks are under 30 bucks.
Location : Just ask anyone in CP.
Wengers also has a nice website, where you can order your stuff.
http://wengerspastry.com/

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