Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
“Lychee is great too, and because I keep coming back for those two, I can't ever get to many of their other unusual flavors.”
“The black sesame and sweet almond cookie were both very good.”
“I wanted to try everything, so I ended up having Taro, Pandan and Zen Butter with mochi as the topping.”
Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
Take-out: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Inexpensive
8 reviews
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I love this place and my wish is that they expand to a bigger location in the future. The space is very very cramped and you barely have room to stand if there's a line. You are forced to eat your ice cream outside because you'd be in everyone's way. As fun as eating standing up outside is, I would much prefer to eat at a table. Well that is my only qualm about the place…
Everything else about this ice cream shop is great though! First of all they have the best ice cream selections!! Lots of creative Asian inspired flavors that not a lot of generic ice cream shops would carry. I've Been here many many times and my favorite flavors are: Rose Lychee, Oreo Green Tea, Pandan, and Black Sesame. The Oreo Green tea seems to be very popular and if you come later in the day, it might be sold out…which was my case for today.
If you are feeling more adventurous, they have some funky flavors like Wasabi, Ginger and Durian! Of course, taste first before you buy the ice cream!
Today I bought the two scoops cup ($6.99) of Rose lychee and Pandan, these two are my favorites to combine with each other. You can actually taste the lychee and the pandan flavor. The lychee almost tastes like you're eating perfume HAHA But these two are highly recommended.
Lastly, bring cash!! This place does not accept cards!
God this place is really teeny. Super cramped in line. I suppose it was National Ice Cream Day… but still. I think that it felt worse because they don't have a good system to address customers and move them down the line properly.
I got the Thai Tea ice cream… it was not thai tea tasting whatsoever T-T. So so sad. My boyfriend got Egg Custard and Black Sesame. Those were quite good. The egg custard I would've hoped to be a bit more eggy, but it's okay. The black sesame was quite on point though. Packed with flavor! Also packed with black sesame seeds, so be sure to do a mirror check or have a friend let you know that there is shtuff in your teeth before you go smiling at people!
This place is incredibly expensive though… I definitely think it's over priced and that there are other places in the city with a better price tag for the quality of ice cream.
—- CASH ONLY —-
Amazing ice cream shop in the heart of china town. They offer zillion kinds of flavors – vanilla, pistachio, banana, lychee (with really lychee meat!), strawberry, green tea, almond, cocho cookies, mint, egg custard, durian, and etc! Any flavor, you name it! They also sell ice cream cakes! Pricing is slightly high – $4+ for one scoop small cup. But quality is good and the flavor taste real.
Worth a visit after a satisfying dim sum in Ctown!
Small little ice cream shop in the streets of Chinatown. I actually almost missed it and walked right past it the first time around!
Asked the ice cream scooper the top flavors and recommended lychee and green tea. After sampling both I went with the lychee. I felt like I've had better green tea ice cream else where so I opted out of that flavor. I appreciated how the lychee flavor had its of lychee in it.
A little more on the expensive side coming out to $4-5 for a single scoop but I guess with so much hype and reviews on Yelp, I wouldn't expect anything less.
Make sure you bring cash! Dropped by after grabbing dim sum at Jing Fong, and it sure hit the spot.
Chocolate Chip Ice Cream – Tastes like the pudding cups you get on Earth Day in elementary school. Best thing ever.
Lychee Rose Ice Cream – On the sweeter side, as its name implies.
Trendy other shops sell ice cream but this is the gold standard. No curly rolls but high quality flavorful delicious ice cream is right here.
Eat dinner nearby but save room for a beautiful scoop or two here.
Loved the ice cream and sorbets here. Lots of great selections including many flavors not normally seen. I ate a cup of the Lychee sorbet which was the perfect refresher on a hot summer day. The one major issue is that the place is very small-no room for seating which meant on a blistering summer afternoon we had to stand outside and eat, and as anyone familiar with NYC'S Chinatown knows, the smells emanating from the street can be less than appetizing. Inside seating would raise this review considerably.
I go to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for the primarily Asian flavors. My all time favorite is black sesame and they do it really well. There's a lot of black sesame pieces to give it a slight crunch. I grew up drinking black sesame soup as a Hong Kong style dessert and it was my childhood favorite.
I also like durian, but understandably a lot of other people don't. It really does have a strong durian taste, which I personally really like. Mango is a more mainstream flavor and can sometimes be a hit or miss. I had the mango flavors years ago and it was perfectly creamy with a natural mango flavor and pale orange color. Recently, it was a bit too orange and too sweet. It was almost as if they substituted the natural mango flavors with artificial flavoring.
Taro tastes like the taro flavor in bubble tea, which is too sweet and overload on artificial flavoring and coloring.