Thirty four varieties on the counter at 116 Beaumont Street, Hamilton. Buy one piece for after dinner, or a kilo for a wedding, an engagement, a festival or the office.
Raj's Corner Hamilton keeps 34 kinds of mithai at the counter on Beaumont Street. Everything is sold two ways: by the piece if you want something for dessert tonight, and by the kilo if you are filling boxes for a wedding, a festival or a birthday. Walk in, look at the tray, point at what you want.
Most people who buy mithai here are picking up dinner anyway. Sweets sit on the same ordering page as the curries and the breads, so you can put a couple of gulab jamun or a mixed box in with the rest of the order and take the lot home in one bag.
For an event it works the other way around. If you are ordering food for a function, the sweets go on by the kilo and arrive with it. Weddings, engagements, Diwali, Eid, a birthday at work: a kilo box on the table at the end is the part people remember.
You order at the counter here, so there is nothing to book. Browse the full Raj's Corner menu if you want to plan the meal around it.
Mithai is the Indian word for sweets. Almost all of it is built from four things: reduced milk, ground nuts, sugar syrup and flour. Once you know which family a sweet belongs to, you know roughly how it will eat.
Milk cooked down until it turns solid, then set and cut. Plain barfi, malai barfi, carrot barfi, peda, kalakand and milk cake all live here. Dense, fudge like, not very sweet. Barfi is $3.00 a piece and $32.00 a kilo.
Ground cashew worked into a smooth paste and rolled or cut. Kaju katli is the diamond one with the silver leaf, and there is kaju pista roll from $1.80, kaju choco roll from $3.50 and kaju costa from $2.80. The gift end of the counter.
Fried or boiled, then sat in sugar syrup until it is soaked through. Gulab jamun, black jamun, rasgulla, balushahi and jalebi. Eat these warm if you can. Jalebi is $4.50 and $29.00 a kilo.
Toasted flour or besan bound with ghee and sugar. Besan laddu, boondi laddu and kesar laddu at $2.80 each, mysore pak, besan barfi, plus the filled pastries gujia and chandrakala at $4.00.
Fresh milk curd, worked soft rather than cooked hard. Rasgulla, chum chum, kalakand and rasmalai at $4.00. Lighter and wetter than the rest of the counter. More on these on our Bengali sweets page.
Almond barfi at $3.00 a piece and $34.00 a kilo sits across the milk and nut families, and there is bla/pink cutlet at $3.00. Both hold their shape well, which is why they end up in gift boxes.
Start with the Mixed Box of Sweets, $13.00 to $38.00. You get a spread across the counter and you find out what you like.
Same sweets, two ways of buying them. Which one you want depends on whether it is Tuesday night or a wedding.
One or two pieces after dinner. Rasgulla small is $1.50, kaju pista roll $1.80, gulab jamun and besan laddu $2.80 each, barfi $3.00, rasmalai $4.00. Pick a couple of different ones and share them.
Weddings, engagements, Diwali, Eid, a new baby, a box for the office. A kilo runs $29.00 to $39.00 depending on the sweet. Kaju katli is $39.00 a kilo, laddu $30.00 to $32.00, jalebi $29.00.
The easiest first purchase, $13.00 to $38.00 depending on size. A spread of the counter in one box, and the thing to take when you are visiting someone. See what goes in an Indian sweets box.
If the tray is unfamiliar, this is the order to try things in.
Warm, soft, soaked in rose scented syrup. The most familiar Indian sweet in Australia and the least risky thing to order first. There is also black jamun at $2.80, darker and a little more caramelised. Read more about gulab jamun in Newcastle.
Smooth ground cashew, cut into diamonds, barely sweet. No syrup, no grain. This is the sweet people give as a gift in India, and the one most likely to convert someone who thinks mithai is too sweet.
A ball of toasted gram flour and ghee. Nutty and crumbly rather than wet, and completely different to the first two. If you like this you will like mysore pak and boondi laddu as well.
Once those three make sense, try a syrup soaked rasgulla, a piece of milk cake, and a jalebi while it is fresh. That is the whole counter in miniature.
At the Raj's Corner counter, 116 Beaumont Street, Hamilton NSW 2303, open 7 days from 10:30am to 10:00pm. There are 34 varieties of mithai at the counter, sold by the piece and by the kilo. You order at the counter, so there is nothing to book and no minimum to meet.
Mithai is the Indian word for sweets. Most of it is built from reduced milk, ground nuts, sugar syrup or toasted flour, which gives you the main families on the counter: milk based sweets like barfi and peda, cashew sweets like kaju katli, syrup soaked sweets like gulab jamun and jalebi, gram flour sweets like besan laddu and mysore pak, and softer Bengali style milk sweets like rasgulla and rasmalai.
By the piece, most sweets sit between $1.50 and $4.50. Rasgulla small is $1.50, gulab jamun and besan laddu are $2.80, barfi is $3.00, rasmalai is $4.00 and jalebi is $4.50. By the kilo the range is $29.00 to $39.00, with kaju katli at the top at $39.00 and jalebi at $29.00. A Mixed Box of Sweets is $13.00 to $38.00 depending on the size you choose.
Gulab jamun, kaju katli and besan laddu. Gulab jamun is warm and syrup soaked and the most familiar to Australian palates, kaju katli is smooth ground cashew and barely sweet, and besan laddu is nutty and crumbly. Between the three you have tried every texture the counter works with. If you would rather not choose, the Mixed Box of Sweets at $13.00 to $38.00 does the choosing for you.
Yes. Every sweet on the counter is sold by the kilo as well as by the piece, which is how people buy for weddings, engagements, Diwali, Eid and boxes for the office. A kilo runs $29.00 to $39.00 depending on the sweet. Call (02) 4962 1827 or come in to Beaumont Street and tell us what the occasion is.
We are at the Hamilton end of Beaumont Street, with the family's Indian grocery next door. Come in and look at the tray, add sweets to a food order, or call ahead if you need a kilo box ready. Our second shop, Raj's Corner Newcastle at 126 Darby Street, Cooks Hill, runs its own menu and prices.
