Ice cream: Dhaka’s perfect remedy for every mood

Ice cream is a sinful indulgence for anyone... I have a confession to make about this decadent, intense pleasure. I am addicted to ice cream bars and cones. My craving feels almost excessive. My love for ice cream remains as steadfast as ever. It all began in those quiet summer afternoons of my childhood, when the bell of the ice cream man would lure me into getting the orangey ice lolly treats.

Ice cream on a stick, or ice cream bars and cones, have led Dhakaites to commit to gluttony. The heat serves as an excuse, but people are using it as validation to treat themselves to ice cream bars. They indulge after office hours or classes, after an intense counselling session, after a boring meeting, after striking a deal, finishing a job, or even facing a failure; the tea-breaks are for ice cream now. This sweet treat perks you right up.

"Our freezer from Bellissimo, a premium line of ice cream brand in Dhaka, is stocked twice a week. The speciality bars like Supremo and Perfetto, in Vanilla and Chocolate flavours, are an instant sell-out item. I am giving you my last two bars. We got restocked yesterday," says a chirpy teenager in a department store in Uttara's Zohara market, as he was packing my order. I was personalising an assorted box of my favourite flavours from different brands.

The shops had company freezers from brands like Igloo, Savoy, Polar, Bellissimo, Za'n Zee, and more. Each of these companies, to stay alive in a competitive market, is coming up with innovative flavours.

The ice bar menu has moved far from Igloo's choc bar and orange lollies. In fact, Igloo has reinvented its stick ice cream menu with loads of fancy and upscale flavours. Their Exotica Almond Split and Swiss Chocolate premium bars, with crispy and nutty chocolate crust on the outside and a velvety vanilla or chocolate centre, are unparalleled.

Then there is the salted caramel-flavoured Robusto ice cream bar, with an extra-thick, real chocolate coating on the outside from Polar; it just steals your heart in one bite. Last weekend, I was out with friends, and let me tell you, we cannot chill without chocolates and ice cream. Thus, we ended up savouring Savoy Discone ice cream in a chocolate wafer cone.

The Discone of Savoy, with a chocolate fudge centre and a thick layer of chocolatey upper crust, is ambrosia for mortals. The best is the last bite of the crispy cone, filled with gooey chocolate melt. The treat leaves you licking the wrapper and your fingers, covered in chocolate drips.

Besides these local and popular brands, Fruitsicles, a home-grown, hand-crafted gourmet ice popsicle brand, has made a place in our hearts. Their fruity, tangy, and zesty concoction of ice pops is love. This stuffy September, they are offering a new flavour, Guava-chilli. Fruitsicles pop-up carts are found at almost every city fair, and at Jatra in Banani.

The ice cream market sales are broadly divided into two categories: impulse and family purchase. The impulse category is boosted by people like me who shop for cones, cups, sticks, and ice lollies, and in the process, make up for approximately 70 percent of total ice cream sales, according to newspaper reports.

The ice cream market in Bangladesh is now worth more than Tk 2,000 crore, with 97 percent of it being dominated by branded companies. The remaining portion is occupied by locally made ice cream. Isn't that cool?