Ice-Station

Ice-Station is a takeoff on the popular US ice-cream parlor, Coldstone Creamery, where you can mix in some very imaginative mix-ins like gummy bears and pecan halves into your ice-cream. The Hyderabadi version, with its Toblerone, Cashews and Five Star Crunch mix-ins, however, is not quite the cult classic just yet, and whether the city will warm up to this cold dessert zone is something to watch for.

This recent addition to the ice-cream places in the city comes in at an opportune, though morbid, time, when Hyderabad was just beginning to get over the shock of the erstwhile hugely popular Melting Moments on Road No. 2, opposite KBR Park, getting blown away in a freak wind-storm. (Actually, it got crushed under a hoarding which got blown off - but then did you really want the gory details?)

While it provides a fresh look at ice-creams and Five Stars, Ice-Station has a couple of things going awry. The first of which is the location. As has been preached many times since real estate became a religion, location is paramount. Unfortunately for Ice-Station, Lumbini Jewel, with its airless interiors, is hardly the place to position a potential hangout place. The street entrance barely being an alternative.

Nevertheless, Ice-Station attempts to fill in the lacuna left behind by a beloved Melting Moments, and doesn't do too badly. Well, regulars of MM would perhaps strongly disagree here, since the products at this newbie are really not quite there, but full points for innovative menu writing and new ways to have your old favorites.