Is Häagen-Dazs worth the hype?

After much controversy, Häagen-Dazs, the premium brand of ice cream and yogurts finally landed in India. There is a chic café outlet at the Select City mall in Saket, Delhi. However, we decided to pick up tubs of Haagen-Dazs and London Dairy to do some serious evaluation.

So what is the score? Our choice of flavors were Belgian Chocolate (Haagen-Dazs) and Tiramisu (London Dairy). They both come impressively packaged in good looking tubs, sealed twice with sturdy spoons. A spoonful of the still-frozen ice-cream from both tubs did not taste exceptional. However, the taste changes satisfactorily after you let them be for a few minutes.

Haagen-Dazs is no doubt the creamiest ice-cream I have ever tasted. The flavor is rich and there are fine shaves of chocolate which you just about taste versus the chunks you usually bite into most ice-creams. We let the ice-cream melt completely and it gives us a super-thick and super tasty chocolate milkshake

London Dairy does no justice to tiramisu. It is a bit of vanilla with coffee and chocolate flavors. Not much to write home about and certainly not as creamy as Haagen-Dazs.

The final verdict: London Dairy costs about Rs 75 a scoop but that’s besides the point as I did not like it.

Haagen-Dazs tastes great but at Rs 185 a scoop, is steeply priced. I like to have 2 scoops of ice-cream and Rs 400 for an ice-cream cone is pretty expensive. If you have deep pockets go for it; if not head to Gelato or the home grown Gianni and Nirula’s. They taste is as good and cost less than half!