When you open up the weather app on your phone and the temperature isn’t set to drop below 30 degrees for the next week then there’s only one thing for it: ice cream. Stay cool as a cucumber even though the mercury is soaring with these four new icy treats, from vegan froyo to soft serve with a side of ’90s nostalgia.
Avocado Gelato at Avocado Tree
Avocado Tree’s new gelato has been created with the help of Lingxia Gelato and comes in several flavors, including a vegan avo-coconut. Our favorite is the avocado frozen yogurt, which is intensely creamy with none of the chalkiness that sometimes plagues frozen yogurt. Get one scoop in a cup for RMB 22, two for RMB 33, and three for RMB 45, with the option to add a cone for RMB 3. If you’re very lucky, however, the absolute best pick is the avocado surprise (RMB 45), which – surprise! – is shaped like an avocado half. The avocado flesh is made of their avo-coconut gelato with a stone made of hazelnut gelato, while the incredibly realistic shell is made of 85 percent cocoa dark chocolate. At present, they only have very limited quantities of the avocado surprise, so if you want to sample it for yourself, it’s best to get in touch with them in advance.
Ice cream macarons, Comptoirs de France
Most of Comptoirs de France’s desserts sit firmly within the canon of traditional French patisserie, but their new ice cream macarons (RMB 19) most decidedly do not. And for us, that’s what makes them so fun. A disc of Baxi brand ice cream is sandwiched between the two airy, candy-colored shells of a French macaroon, making a deliciously silly, refreshing summer treat that we suspect will fly out of the store’s refrigerated shelves during the warmer months. The macarons are available in both lemon and strawberry flavors.
White Rabbit Ice Cream
In China, few treats trigger more childhood memories than White Rabbit candy and now you can get in on the nostalgia with their pop-up in Sanlitun Soho (courtesy of a partnership with previously nondescript tea shop Yokikano Tea). The store serves White Rabbit flavored milk tea, which has been whipping up plenty of hype on social media, but the White Rabbit ice cream is a true winner. It’s creamy and thick and each lick unleashes the distinctly sugary, milky, vanilla-y flavor of the renowned Chinese taffy. The sturdy, layered waffle cone puts the dessert over the top, both for nostalgia-driven Chinese patrons and the otherwise uninitiated.
Coconut Froyo ice cream sandwich, Tribe
Those of us who follow special diets – low sugar, vegan, dairy-free, you name it – can feel a bit left out when it comes to delicious ice cream treats. Luckily, Tribe has stepped up with the “For Froyo’s Sake Cookie Sandwich” from their new summer menu. The froyo comes from local brand Yeyo, made with their dairy-free coconut yogurt, and the cookie is made with gluten-free almond flour (note that there is egg in the cookie so this is vegetarian, not vegan). The coconut froyo has kind of an icy texture, almost more like sorbet than ice cream, but also avoids the chalkiness that can plague standard froyo.
READ: Getting goosed on Starbucks’ summer cocktails and other new refreshing drinks
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Photos courtesy of Comptoirs de France, Robynne Tindall, Avocado Tree, Kyle Mullin, Tribe
