Date: 25 Feb 2019
Venue: Hyderabad

Hyderabad – the city of Nizams is famous for pearls and diamonds. For foodies like us these pearls and diamonds are in the hidden treasures of the food dishes that this city had to offer. One such item is Jouzi Halwa. Truth be told, we had no idea about this dish. It is during a heritage walk in Delhi, Alka Kaushik (friend and co-blogger) mentioned this dish and got us really excited. Serendipity, after a few days we got an opportunity to visit Hyderabad to review Holiday Inn Express Hotels.

We were told that Hameedi Confectioners is the place to go for Jouzi Halwa. We looked up on Zomato and found they have 3 outlets in Hyderabad. As we were coming back from Salarjung Museum, we just went to the one that was enroute.

Hamidi Confectioners outlet turned out to be simple and unassuming just like any other sweet shop in the city. Apparently it is a 100 years old brand and they were the ones who would serve the Nizams their favorite dessert – Jouzi Halwa.

We asked them for sampler of Jouzi Halwa and they gladly offered it on a wooden ice cream spoon. Love at first bite – one spoon of this halwa and we started making lists of how much were we getting packed for friends and family. A North Indian can easily mistake it for Gajar Halwa as it looks pretty much the same. But make no mistake; there is no carrot in Jouzi Halwa. Jouzi Halwa is made of milk, sugar, clarified butter, dry fruits and the magic ingredient Jouzi – which is Turkish variety of nutmeg. That is how the Halwa gets its unique flavour. Subtle, melt in mouth and rich – we were in food heaven. Another dish that they offered is almond halwa which was also very good. This was yellow in color and looked like our dal halwa. But again, it tasted absolutely different.

While the guys at Hameedi were packing our long list of Halwa and other sweet boxes, we tried their natural fruit ice cream. We opted for musk melon. This was subtle in sweetness, fresh and yum. The quality was as great as their other sweet items.

If you visit Hyderabad, you must try Jouzi Halwa. We would not mind visiting Hyderabad again for this gem of a dessert. Meanwhile, if any of you know of a place in Delhi NCR that makes Jouzi Halwa, please enlighten us by leaving a comment below.