IMG_3569
Willow Glen. Everyone is queueing up for Icicles, the newest ice cream sensation. There have been lines here for months. I haven't tried it, so I don't know what all the fuss is about.
Mercury News: Popularized by Thailand’s street vendors, rolled ice cream is made from scratch for each customer. Cream and flavorings are poured onto a super-cold pan, then the liquid is scraped and chopped, chopped, chopped — picture a Benihana chef in an icy environment — until it solidifies just enough to be spread out, wafer-thin, onto the whole sheet. Then it’s scraped into rolls 2 or 3 inches long and those rolls are carefully placed, end up, in an ice cream cup.
The trend migrated across the ocean to New York last year and Los Angeles this year.
In the Bay Area, a few ice cream shops have been dabbling in this new method, but Icicles makes rolled ice cream exclusively — even pasteurizing the milk on-site — which draws crowds to Lincoln Avenue late into the night.
“We’re unique. From step one to step 10, we make everything ourselves,” said Icicles co-owner Lit Leong, who became intrigued with rolled ice cream on his travels abroad. “We figured, why don’t we bring something from another culture here?”
Thanks to word-of-mouth and social media, the business has taken off. “We didn’t expect it to be this crazy. We expected (to serve) 100 to 200 a day. We didn’t expect 700 or 800,” said Leong, who employs 30 and stays open beyond closing time to accommodate all the customers in line.
With waits of up to an hour, rolled ice cream has become a sidewalk happening.
IMG_3569
Willow Glen. Everyone is queueing up for Icicles, the newest ice cream sensation. There have been lines here for months. I haven't tried it, so I don't know what all the fuss is about.
Mercury News: Popularized by Thailand’s street vendors, rolled ice cream is made from scratch for each customer. Cream and flavorings are poured onto a super-cold pan, then the liquid is scraped and chopped, chopped, chopped — picture a Benihana chef in an icy environment — until it solidifies just enough to be spread out, wafer-thin, onto the whole sheet. Then it’s scraped into rolls 2 or 3 inches long and those rolls are carefully placed, end up, in an ice cream cup.
The trend migrated across the ocean to New York last year and Los Angeles this year.
In the Bay Area, a few ice cream shops have been dabbling in this new method, but Icicles makes rolled ice cream exclusively — even pasteurizing the milk on-site — which draws crowds to Lincoln Avenue late into the night.
“We’re unique. From step one to step 10, we make everything ourselves,” said Icicles co-owner Lit Leong, who became intrigued with rolled ice cream on his travels abroad. “We figured, why don’t we bring something from another culture here?”
Thanks to word-of-mouth and social media, the business has taken off. “We didn’t expect it to be this crazy. We expected (to serve) 100 to 200 a day. We didn’t expect 700 or 800,” said Leong, who employs 30 and stays open beyond closing time to accommodate all the customers in line.
With waits of up to an hour, rolled ice cream has become a sidewalk happening.