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Ice Cream Sandwich Truck Hits Manhattan

By Amy Zimmer | April 28, 2011 7:18pm | Updated on April 29, 2011 7:33am
Coohaus ice cream sandwich
Coohaus ice cream sandwich
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http://eatcoolhaus.com/

By Amy Zimmer

DNAinfo News Editor

MANHATTAN — Brown butter and candied bacon ice cream on a maple waffle white chocolate cookie? Or red velvet cake batter ice cream on a ginger molasses cookie?

These are some of the ice cream sandwiches one could try from the new truck called Coolhaus that will be roaming New York City and the Hamptons this summer.

Coolhaus, which cancelled its Thursday launch because of the rain, is giving out free ice cream in SoHo, at Grand and Lafayette streets, from noon to 4 p.m. on Friday, with vanilla bean on chocolate chip cookies, nutella almond on oatmeal cookies and earl grey ice cream on a brioche cookie, according to its Twitter feed.

The company, which started in Los Angeles — launching at the Coachella Valley Music Festival in 2009 — uses all-natural ingredients wrapped in a customizable, edible wrapper (which can be printed on with edible ink).

These ice cream sandwiches tip their hats to architecture and are even named after some of their architectural heroes, like the Mies Vanilla Rohe named for Mies van der Rohe or the Frank Berry for Frank Gehry.

The company's name is a play on architectural themes. According to its website, it takes its name from: the Bauhaus modernist design movement of the 1920s and 1930; the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who wrote "Delirious New York" about city architecture; and "cool house" as the ice cream sandwich can be deconstructed into a cookie roof and floor slab with ice cream walls.

"New York is an exciting and powerful market — and is very much connected to L.A. — where people appreciate a cool and innovative product," Coohaus co-founder Natasha Case, wrote in an email. "New Yorkers are also very sophisticated and cultured, and we felt the intellectual component of the sandwich (ie architectural inspiration) would be appreicated by the local customer base, as would the quality."

The truck, which is giving out free ice cream by teaming up with Firefox for a promotion of its new Android browser, will be in Bryant Park on Saturday, in Union Square on Sunday and then Madison Square Park on Monday.

Case is hopeful that the truck will take off in New York.

"I think the operation here may even surpass L.A. because there is such an incredible pulse in New York, public presence and embrace of something cool and unique," she said, adding, "word just travels so fast!"