Tuesday, May 19, 2009

dessert/taiwanese: i strongly recommend SNOW KING ICE CREAM or XUE WANG



SNOW KING ICE CREAM or XUE WANG
No. 65, Wuchang St, Sec 1
(02) 2331-8415

(CLOSED but relocating a/o summer 2015)

MRT: Ximen

hours: 12noon to 10pm

$

Kid friendliness: benches and seats and ice cream!

Visit reviewed: 4/16/2009 & 4/30/2009



Sweet. Sour. Spicy. Savory. Snow King Ice Cream has any kind of flavor you'd want, and yes, it's ice cream.

See the menu above? Carrot, Honey, Mustard, Curry, Chili Pepper, Mint, Tomato, Basil, Bitter Melon. Yup, still ice cream flavors.

Not strange enough? There's also chicken, soybean curd, pork floss and pig's feet flavored ice cream.



But don't let those unusual flavors scare you away if you're strictly a chocolate or strawberry. Snow King also does fabulous traditional flavors that tastes as if you were eating the essence of the fruits or flavors themselves. My favorite is peach, which has small chunks of icy peach inside, or recently, I tried guava, which tastes like melt-in-your-mouth guava.



A much wider array of flavors are available than most of the chain shops in town- Snow King offers around 73 almost every day, and all of its ice cream is handmade by the shop, most using local ingredients.




Seeing Snow King packed with students gasping in delight and clamoring to taste and share the various flavors they had ordered reminded me of the first time I came with a bunch of friends from the states five years ago. The store has a "no sample" policy, so if you want to give Taiwan Beer or Sweet Corn or Rose ice cream a try, you have to buy a scoop. Otherwise they'd probably go out of business giving away samples from curious visitors.



Each flavor is priced differently and the prices are shown on the Chinese menu. They have an English menu upon request (but it doesn't have the prices on them). Most scoops run from NT$60-$100, but goes as low as NT$45 for Milk, Sesame or Mint and as high as NT$150 for Ginseng. It's also worth noting that one of their popular flavors- Taro- has been discontinued for a few years, much to the sadness of my visiting friend.



Making each flavor into ice cream basically reduces it to its core notes of flavors- like my sister got Kiwi and it was a bit sour with the flecks of crunchy kiwi seeds throughout- especially since I took a bite of it after I ate my peach ice cream.

Snow King Ice Cream is perfect to take a group of visiting friends after walking around nearby Ximending. It's basically across the street and a few blocks from the Ximen MRT, near the police station and Zhongshan Hall.




I know you guys love desserts, so looking forward to hearing if anyone has tried some of the weirder flavors and what you thought!

15 comments:

momo said...

Sounds great! I definitly would be willing to try one of the weirder flavors. Perhaps I'll give it a go this weekend.

EatTravelEat said...

Wow, so many interesting flavors! I wonder how bitter melon ice cream would taste like...

And it is pretty interesting that even for such a place like this they use glass as the cups for the ice cream, which is not very typical of ice cream shops where I live. With so many customers they have lots of cleaning to do that's for sure.

grover said...

Oh man, I know where I'm going next time I visit Taipei... this looks fantastic!

Peech said...

This is my favorite ice cream shop in Taipei. I have actually eaten the pig trotter and curry flavors, on top of the more "normal" ones. And the custard apple flavor is awesome!

joanh said...

momo: cool! let us know what you get!

eattraveleat: that's true! they are old school, but it's probably better for the ice cream and saves costs in the long run

grover: cool!

peech: ooh.. will try custard apple.

Anonymous said...

Is there any where that have Indian type ice cream? Or does this shop make it also? In San Francisco have a shop that make Indian flavors ice creams.


Vickie

kirbie said...

how cool. I know that Taiwan offers a lot of unique flavors of ice cream that I can never find in the US, but I didn't see most of these flavors on my last trip. I'm curious how some of these wacky ones taste.

Anonymous said...

s...soybean curd?
just had it for dinner -
would love to see how it tastes in ice cream form!

dlin said...

I've been here before!...I tried the pig's feet, it actually tasted like the inside of a moon cakes. The sweet pork part, I wouldn't order it again but it was better than I thought it was. The Brandy was great though!

LIN said...

I went here yesterday and had cinnamon. Twas good! One of the best ice creams I've ever had. I don't like creamy milky ice creams, so this is good.

Kung Food Panda said...

I'm actually surprised they discontinued the taro flavor, since it's so popular in TW...

I never caught this place when I went to Xi Men, but I'll keep an eye for it this year!

Fabian said...

You have the ultimate food blog for Taipei, and I thought no one loved food more than me. Would love to meet you...please give me a call when you are in Taipei and we'll go out enjoy some good food.

My blog is at 4fabian.multiply.com

and you can e mail me there or on:

4fabian@gmail.com

Fabian said...

You have the ultimate food blog for Taipei, and I thought no one loved food more than me. Would love to meet you...please give me a call when you are in Taipei and we'll go out enjoy some good food.

My blog is at 4fabian.multiply.com

and you can e mail me there or on:

4fabian@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Just went today (Aug. 14, 2012). Taro flavor is back. And it was delicious!

Wayne

Marian said...

Went with a friend on 5/4/2013. We had:

guava - awesome. tastes like a guava!
taro - creamy and smooth. no chunks of taro, though.
plum - a great blend of sour and sweet.
sticky rice - has a bit of brandy and longan fruit. tastes more like longan than rice.
pork floss - tastes like a frozen package of pork floss mixed with cream. (well, i guess that's ice cream!).

can't wait to go back and try more flavors.

:)