Topsy turvy for the tongue

While the city reaches boiling point, Kasmin Fernandes takes you on a temperature collision tour. Ice cream is fried, soup comes topped with chilled foam, and salads are flambeed

While the city reaches boiling point, Kasmin Fernandes takes you on a temperature collision tour. Ice cream is fried, soup comes topped with chilled foam, and salads are flambeed

Fried Ice Cream
At: China Valley, Plot No. 9-B, Kopari Village, next to Hiranandani Gardens, Powai.
Call: 25701484
For: Rs 140
The main course here is hit-and-miss, but Golden Fried Ice Cream is always a winner. The folks at this Chinese eatery have given a twist to the usual fried ice cream recipe. Vanilla ice cream is coated with bread crumbs, then stuffed inside a sponge cake that's deep fried. Eating the garma garam cake centred with crusty ice cream is a delicious race to the finish.

Warm caramel, Vanilla ice cream on toasted Croissant
At: Theobroma, Cusrow Baug, Colaba Causeway. 22830101
For: Rs 80 for Caramel Croissant with Ice Cream; Rs 100 for Devil's Dessert
Luscious vanilla ice cream and warm, soft buttery caramel sauce are served over a torn and toasted
butter croissant in this exquisite dessert. Another hot-and-cold innovation is Devil's Dessert warm chocolate mousse cake and cold vanilla ice cream served with a chocolate and caramel sauce. Wicked!

Hot Cappuccino with chilledu00a0 foam
At: Corleone, Intercontinental Marine Drive.
Call: 39879999.
For: Rs 245
Executive Chef Amit Bharadwaj has included this whimsical Porcini Cappuccino soup to the home-style Sicilian and Italian cuisine restaurant's new menu. "The hot creamy porcini mushroom soup has a chilled milk foam on top," he says. The soup is then topped with alfa alfa sprouts and a super-thin pasta popularly called "angel hair".

Chilled Fruit Flambeed in rum
At: The Orchid, 70-C, Nehru Road, Santacruz Airport, Vile Parle (E).
Call:u00a0 26164040
For: Rs 225 for salad, Rs 450 for Prawn Peri Peri
Eco-sensitive hotel The Orchid has two temperature colliders up its sleeve. Hot Rum and Citrus Salad is an assortment of citrus fruit segments served flambu00e9ed with subtle sweet rum "in the Jamaican way" as Executive Chef Sanjay Bahl calls it. The Prawn Peri Peri is a Goan-Portuguese dish that has chilli marinated prawns grilled and served on a bed of cold lettuce with kokum cream.

Chilled soupu00a0
At: Indigo Cafe, Clifton Trishool Housing Society, Oshiwara Village, Lokhandwala, Andheri (W). Call: 26336262
For: Rs 185
The suburban outlet of Indigo does a great version of the cold Spanish tomato-based soup. Fresh, raw veggies are suspended in a broth of tomato juice and chicken or vegetable stock. This "liquid salad" is perfect for summer afternoons.

Hot pudding turns into cool liquid choc
At: Mocha Mojo, Classic Corner Building, Hill Road, Bandra (W). Call: 26433098
For: Rs 150
Corporate Executive Chef Brainard Colaco has played not just with temperatures but with textures too, and thrown molecular gastronomy into the mix. So, the reinvention of the bestselling Lava Lava is a hot molten grainy chocolate pudding with a gooey white chocolate centre, served with rich almond fudge ice cream and biscotti. What is a piping hot pudding on first bite transforms into cool liquid white chocolate.

Bhel with ice
At: Pooja Ice Bhel, Chandavarkar Road, near Aditya Tower, Borivali (W).
For: Rs 15
It's a wild concoction that seems far from real until you taste a mouthful. It's that same Chowpatty bhel, except that it comes with ice-cold chutney, chilled pomegranate seeds and peanuts. The kurmura and sev make it crunchy. Paresh Sejpal of Pooja Ice Bhel stall stores the tangy imli and pudina chutney in an ice-box, so that you feel the fiery and chilled clash with every bite you take.