LOWER EAST SIDE — Two friends have opened a new specialty ice cream shop featuring quirky flavors inspired by memories of their childhood.
After selling their homemade ice cream at various street fairs and markets across the city for the past two years, Ken Lo and Paul Kim opened Ice & Vice on East Broadway near Clinton Street Friday, specializing in unconventional ice cream flavors like General Tso(bet) chicken, which mimics the orange-sauce-covered Chinese food dish using burnt honey, bartlett pear and Sriracha flakes.
“We get inspired by a lot of things,” said Lo, whose atypical flavors netted Ice & Vice “Best Dessert” at last year’s Vendy Awards. “Each one kind of has a story behind it.”
While the General Tso(bet) isn't currently on the menu, other flavors are, including “Movie Night” — made with buttered popcorn, toasted raisins and dark chocolate flakes — and "Nuts of Wrath," Kim and Lo’s literary-inspired name for their take on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with almonds and grape Kool-Aid.
Other flavors currently available at the store include the “Three Little Pigs,” which contains salted caramel, bacon butter and bacon praline as well as the “Happy Panda” sorbet, made with black rice horchata, coconut cream and Saigon cinnamon.
The pair went into ice cream business despite the fact that both are lactose-intolerant.
“We both love ice cream,” Lo said. “We’re like ‘It’s worth the pain.’”
The shop plans to rotate up to 12 different flavors, the owners said, and offer single four-ounce scoops for $4.36 and double eight-ounce scoops for $6.20. The owners also plan to serve coffee and add ice cream soda floats, sundaes and sandwiches to the menu in upcoming weeks, they said.
The new brick-and-mortar location will also be used to manufacture ice cream and develop new flavors, which the owners plan to reveal on social media. Ice & Vice will also continue to vend at different markets and events throughout the city, they said.
Ice & Vice, located at 221 East Broadway, is open weekdays from noon to 11 p.m. and on weekends from noon to midnight.
