RAK’S EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM IS COOL DESPITE TURF WAR
▶ Mohammed Ashiq has been selling his ice cream sundaes for 36 years but success attracts competitors
In Ras Al Khaimah, the way to beat the heat comes in the form of pink and white ice cream. It is a summer tradition owed to one man, Mohammed Ashiq.
His is the story of the selfmade man who came to the emirate as a labourer and built himself an ice cream empire.
When he landed in RAK in 1975, Mr Ashiq earned Dh25 a day as a fitter. He scraped together enough to buy a Polaroid camera and sold photographs to tourists. With this money, he bought two slushy machines from Dubai. He filled one with Tang and the other with Vimto, rented a wooden shack by the ferry wharf on the creek and named his business Ashuk. He charged 50 fils a cup. By 1982, he was able to buy an ice cream machine for Dh18,000.
Mr Ashiq is known for The Ashuk, a towering sundae of mango, pomegranate and apple topped with crushed pistachios and strawberry syrup. It is a tribute to his father, who had a kulfi cart in Sialkot, Pakistan, and his grandfather, who sold fruit on the streets.
Most distinct is the ice cream itself, a swirl of pink and white that has a light, milky texture.
“Our ice cream, it’s not a McDonald’s-style ice cream or a scoop ice cream,” said his son Bilal. “Ours is more icy and less creamy. It’s our own recipe and it’s been pretty much the same since the beginning.”
Bilal now runs the shop. When people drive down the old creek road in the evening, they see him overseeing the crew that deliver orders to 4x4s outside. Ashuk is a takeaway operation and its success has attracted competition.
Next door is Multifoods, a cafeteria that opened in 2007 and initially served a variety of foods. By 2009, Multifoods began to serve an ice cream, pink, white and icy.
“This white and pink ice cream, especially with this texture, it was not around here,” Bilal said. “They have just duplicated it. They have not changed anything because this is what the customers like.”
But the owner of Multifoods says otherwise. “This is just normal ice cream,” said Saeeid Yousefi, 47. Sometimes, when people park outside Ashuk, they accidentally order from Multifoods, unaware that the servers are working for the shop next door.
But Mr Yousefi has his own iced speciality – Iranian faloodeh, fine rice-starch noodles frozen in rose-water syrup with pomegranate or strawberry syrup. Conceding to Emirati tastes, he added a Vimto option. Flavours include saffron and blueberry.
“In the whole UAE you won’t find anything else like this,” Mr Yousefi said. “My ice cream is handmade. This is my secret. Now, all of these years I’m here, not one other shop is making this. Only me.”
His first ice cream shop was on Qeshm island but he learnt his craft growing up in the northern province of Gilan on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
He learnt from his grandfather, a renowned ice cream maker who had 15 employees, and was the only grandchild to study the family recipes.
Slowly, other ice cream shops serving the pink and white sundaes have spread across RAK.
Of Mr Ashiq’s staff, two have become ice cream entrepreneurs, including the founder of Tamasha, a popular shop in the north coast town of Al Rams. His ice cream’s appearance is identical to The Ashuk but has a far creamier base. Three months ago, Tamasha opened a second branch, in RAK city.
Ashuk now has four shops in RAK and one in Dubai.
“It’s special ice cream, it’s different,” said Mona Al Shehhi, 34, a customer parked outside with her three children. “When I was a child I’d come here with my father, and now I’m doing what my dad did for me.”
Customers chat to each other from car windows.
“The thing about Ashuk is, it’s something that people know from their elders, so it’s just like, fused into the culture as Ras Al Khaimah has grown,” Bilal said. “It’s a folklore sort of a thing, Ashuk.
“It is a business but at the same time for me, this is my identity of living in Ras Al Khaimah, spending my time here.”