Despite his blindness and old age, Mashti Esmail walks three hours every day to till his rice paddies. In addition to the flavor above, Mashti Malone’s offers other dairy-free selections, including Pomegranate Sorbet (pictured below at right), Non-Dairy Rosewater Ice Cream (made with soymilk), and Herbal Snow Sorbet. In the Iranian countryside, an old blind farmer named Mashti Esmaeil toils through the seasons of sowing and harvest. While the sorbet is sweet it is not overly so, but the flavor and scent do make it an intense mouthful – I felt like I was eating frozen poetry.
Thin strands of sour cherry (or faloudeh – shredded rice flour strands flavored with sour cherry) add an even more exotic note and a bit of drama and texture to the palate. Order food online at Mashti Malones Ice Cream, Los Angeles with Tripadvisor: See 49 unbiased reviews of Mashti Malones Ice Cream, ranked 469 on Tripadvisor among 11,797 restaurants in Los Angeles. The Rose Sorbet with Sour Cherry is a soft, pale mauve with a haunting floral perfume and taste. Mashti Malone’s all-natural, Persian-inspired products are now available a bit more widely at least on the West Coast of the U.S., and the company has mail order capability, so I thought it was okay to tell you about my favorite food I ingested at the show that year – Rose Sorbet with Sour Cherry. To achieve authentic, unique flavors, their creamery gets its ingredients from overseas, like saffron from Iran and Alphonso mangos from India. I spotted the brand in my local Whole Foods and checked on the website. Owners Mashti and Mehdi Shirvani, credited with bringing Persian ice cream flavors to California in 1980 at their flagship 1525 N La Brea Ave, will open their second store forty years later in February.