Pleasure Palate Indian Ice Cream & Shaved Ice Tasting at Saffron Spot July 29, 2007

Time to tempt your palate with all the pleasurable flavors that Southern California has to offer. Join Pleasure Palate as we do some culinary exploring of restaurants (both high-end and holes in the walls), various food and beverage tastings, cooking classes, potlucks and so much more. From savory to sweet, from salty to sour, from spicy to tangy, from exotic to All-American, we'll taste it all, so come along and take your taste buds on the ride of their life. Today is all about getting to know and experience Saffron Spot, an ice cream parlor where the ice cream takes on the delicious and exotic flavors of the owner's native India.

In April 2001, Mumbai native Smita Salgaonkar started Neemo’s Exotic Ice Creams in her adopted home, northern Orange County, naming her operation for an amalgam of her daughters' names. With the success of Neemo's behind her, she also opened Saffron Spot, a stylish Indian ice cream parlor, named for the valuable spice that seasons several of her flavors.

Some of the flavors you'll see at Saffron Spot are unlike anything you'll ever see at your local Baskins Robbins or Cold Stone Creamery. Sure, you'll see ice creams like mango and lychee, but chikoo and kulfi are words that may not be in your vocabulary. Chikoo or Sapodilla, by the way, is a fruit similar to a well-ripened pear and Kulfi is made with boiled milk and amazingly enough, no eggs. Kulfi can be flavored with pistachio, cardammon, saffron and other ingredient ingredients.

Other items on the Saffron Spot menu include golas (Indian version of shaved ice), falooda ice cream drinks (flavored milk mixed with rice or wheat noodles, basil seeds and topped with ice cream) as well falooda "sundaes" (ice cream topped with the noodles, basil seeds and syrup) and so much more.

For just $15, we will be experiencing the following (which includes some of what's been mentioned above):

• a short talk about Saffron Spot and Indian ice cream by owner, Smita Salgaonkar, herself.
  
  
• A tasting of the following frozen treats:
  
  - 3 small scoops of ice cream and a small serving of Kulfi
  
  - Kulfi Falooda (Kulfi ice cream served on a bed of noodles with rose syrup and takmaria (basil seeds))
  
  - Malai Gola (Shaved ice served with Malai(cream), syrups and nuts)
  
  - Rose Falooda Ice Cream Drink (Rose milk with noodles and takmaria(basil seeds) topped with rose ice cream)
  
  
• a 10% general discount off anything in their store, including their pre-packaged ice cream

For those of you ice cream fans, this is definitely the event for you, so please join me for what will an exotic culinary adventure into the world of Indian frozen treats!

To purchase tickets, click here!

Official Website: http://www.localwineevents.com/Los-Angeles-Wine/event-135107.html