Chinatown Ice Cream Dragon: There Can Be Only One

Ice Cream Fight

The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (OCICF), my favorite source for almond cookie and red bean ice creams, is easy to find in the fog of Manhattan's Chinatown. First, because it's the only storefront in Chinatown with a line out the door; and second, because of that unflappable fat dragon on the smudged yellow awning. He's gorging himself on some exotic confection: taro, almond cookie, mango. And now, that happy little fire-eater is in the middle of Chinatown Ice Cream Factory's first full-fledged beef. Of late, the following sign has been posted outside the shop:

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory Trademark Notice

It reads:

Dear Valued Customers,

We are and continue to be the one and only ORIGINAL CHINATOWN ICE CREAM FACTORY. Due to our popular success in our close to 30 years in business, there have been some other companies that are currently using our trademark without our permission.

We are still dedicated to providing the excellent service and product that we have been serving at this one and only location. Do not be deceived by these other imitation brands.

Sorry for the inconvenience and we will hopefully soon settle this matter.

-The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

According to the guy at the counter who served me my cup of durian ice cream (I thought it tasted the way it smelled, like an old sock wrapped around a rancid banana, but your mileage may vary), the trademark dispute centers on a new storefront in Nolita named, predictably, Nolita Ice Cream Factory. I asked him if it was run by some renegade ex-OCICF faction, and he replied, cryptically, "Dunno."

You can find the Nolita Ice Cream Factory on Kenmare Street, just off Lafayette. It sees perhaps one percent the foot traffic of Bayard Street on an average day, and it has a comfortable bench outside. And indeed, that insatiable dragon and his sundae; he's everywhere. Nestled behind the fire escape ladder, with the same jaunty flip to his tail; on the cake display; on the door, under an innocent halo of Chinese characters, identical, except for a missing fifth character, to those on OCICF's awning:

Nolita Dragon

When I asked Nolita's own guy-at-the-counter whether the owners were the same people as OCICF's, his response was quick and certain:

"Yeah."

Chowhounder "Andrew" digs deeper and discovers that the Nolita shop is supposedly run by one of the five Chinese brothers that owned OCICF, though the only authority figure I saw at the Kenmare creamery was a large white guy rocking an AC/DC shirt.

The ice cream appears to be the same product, with a similar consistency and variety of flavors. Both shops have that distracted-wholesome-college-student service that is a hallmark of the Chinatown location (they rock the official OCICF hats!). Besides the sunny decor in the Nolita space and its lack of traffic (customers were outnumbered by dragon logos when I was there), there's barely a hint of a difference between the two businesses.

Is downtown New York ready for another Plump Dumpling-style logo war? Can the audacious newcomer survive in the wasteland that is Kenmare Street? Where is the Nolita Ice Cream Factory getting its ice cream? There is only one sure thing in this convoluted confectionary tale: durian ice cream is disgusting, and I should have known better.

chinatown-ish , food-ish , investigation-ish by tangentialist at 08:23 AM on 26 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | Comments (2) | TrackBack (6)

Williamsburg Franchise Watch: Subway, 1; Starbucks, 0

Williamsburg Has A Subway!

For those of you not intimately familiar with the struggles over development and gentrification in Williamsburg, let me assure you, the battle is fraught. In short:

Well, today the franchises made a healthy noteworthy gain, with the very first national chain entry being a Subway sandwich shop on the corner of Bedford and North 5th (two doors down from the Northside car service). According to the nervous guys inside, it will open in "about three weeks". This should just beat the second franchise that is apparently moving into the Northside: a UPS Store on North 7th Street.

Rumors here always swirled around the imminent arrival of a Starbucks (that's how it went down in Park Slope), but this is a new century, in which multi-grain rolls, reheated meatballs, and low-carb wraps take precedence over the cult of caffeine. I predict this will be one of the busiest storefronts on Bedford within a year, no matter what the rolled eyes say. Anytime had better step up their game.

Postscript: A reader points out that I am forgetting two things--first, Williamsburg includes streets other than Bedford Avenue, which means McDonald's on Broadway and White Castle on Metro both beat Subway to the punch; and second, I neglected to note the presence of a Tasti D-Lite one block away on Bedford, which appears recently to have become a franchise opportunity. I stand corrected, but still shudder at the thought of Subway's bready, franchised aroma.

brooklyn-ish , food-ish , gentrification-ish , williamsburg-ish by tangentialist at 03:36 PM on 22 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

Computers Are Eating My Brain and Replacing It With Flickr

Today, Kottke wrote a piece on memory and the rise of alternate digital memories to replace our gray-matter search engines. This, of course, reminded me of my unfinished post about photography as a surrogate memory, prompted by something Keith had written back in February.

It's hard to remember if I was ever great at remembering things, but I definitely don't trust my memory today as much as I once did. Always the hypochondriac, I'm inclined to find some physiological cause for not being able to remember a name ("It must be the beef! Mad cow!"), rather than my frustrating tendency to not actually listen when someone first tells me their name. But what, for example, did I do two Saturdays ago? I know that I went to Staten Island this weekend, and that I went to Chelsea, but I don't think I'd trust my recall of the weekend if you asked me. This, honestly, is because I have the irrefutable evidence of digital photography to back me up. Thus, I can tell you with confidence that (at the very least), on the 9th of July, I:

Flickr, in part, has shifted the balance of my memory towards the long-term, with sometimes brutal effects on my remaining short-term memory. And my long term memory is increasingly digital, relying on considerably less durable containers--my laptop (backed up, thank you), and paid web services like Backpack and Flickr--than my brain. Though I can now tell you where I was exactly five months ago (hello, Midtown!), that memory is subject to the whims of my hard drive and Yahoo's business practices. Should I fail to pay my hosting fee, I may someday fail to remember that I snuck into the pool last night.

My short term memory is shot, but for those items that are worth storing digitally. Can I tell you what I have to work on this week? Maybe, if I check my to-do list and iCal. Phone numbers? Forget it; I have my girlfriend's, my parents', and work's by heart, and that's it--my cellphone has the rest. And names? Get a memorable domain name (and an RSS feed), and we're good to go.

In short, my memory is being slowly subverted by devices and web services. This realization comes just as I finish the comforting Everything Bad Is Good For You, in which we learn that games, television, and the Internet are making us all more agile thinkers. Frankly, I think the connected life is reprogramming my brain to better serve my devices, games, and the Internet, and my memories of life as I once knew it are just the first victims.

flickr-ish , memory-ish by tangentialist at 08:12 PM on 19 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

Night In McCarren Pool

After having ventured into the vastness of the abandoned pool in Williamsburg's McCarren Park with Nick on July 4th, I knew I had to go back at night. The crumbling pedestals and rusting metal, though perilous in low-light conditions, felt humiliated in daylight. I had gotten some nice responses to the daytime photos, but it wouldn't have felt right to stop there. I planned to sneak in at night during the next full moon, and gathered a couple accomplices to protect me from people with knives.

The pool really feels more alive when it's dark. The shadows sharpen every angle, and you can hear every movement in the pool--footsteps, raccoons, pebbles. Because it's such a fortress, the space doesn't feel as menacing as, say, Roosevelt Island at night. It just feels forgotten there, as if all the kids moved away and the water gradually evaporated.

They're repurposing the pool facility for some sort of short dance project in September, which could precede a larger redevelopment project, assuming funds and community support are there. As hot as it was shooting there last night, I have to wonder why they don't just make it a pool again.

[Tien (of tienmao.com) has a flickr set and his commentary]

brooklyn-ish , photo-ish , williamsburg-ish by tangentialist at 12:24 PM on 19 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (4)

Google Maps Tokyo: Slurpee Detector

Google Maps now speaks Tokyo, and the true influence of American chain eateries on the Japanese psyche becomes achingly clear. Apparently, the relative position of every 7-11, McDonald's, and Circle K is crucial to an understanding of where you are situated in Tokyo's notoriously opaque street system. Check out this power cluster of three Mickey D's within four city blocks, calling to the unsuspecting lost masses of Tokyo tourists with promises of grilled familiarity!

Actually, I had heard Tokyo was confusing, but is the local 7-11 as good as it gets for street signage?

(The photo above, by anotherview on Flickr, is of a 7-11 in Kobe, who also get the full Google Maps treatment. Strangely, when you google "7-11, Kobe, Japan", you get loads of map points, but none of them correspond to the 7-11 icons.)

google-ish , japan-ish by tangentialist at 05:58 PM on 14 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

The Chaos Of Summer

...is no excuse to stop writing, but it helps to explain why things are slow. In lieu of the post I should be editing right now, here are a few of the myriad reasons I bust out regularly to defeat the process of writing (or doing anything creative, for that matter):

  1. I am feeling stuck in a rut, and should stop doing everything that I am currently doing, because that only leaves "new" things.
  2. Editing is hard.
  3. That post was too short / too long / too derivative.
  4. I'd rather be taking photos.
  5. I'd rather be eating.
  6. Subject would prefer I not post that to the general public
  7. Work
  8. "Work"
  9. I don't like posting about posting, and besides, [any of the above].

I have a project that I'm finishing up for myself that will involve posting something very small every single day. I'm obsessed with the idea that I can instill good habits in my life, and my top three are: staying vigilant, keeping promises, and always having projects. Somewhere in there is a commitment to write more often--assuming, of course, that I'd not rather be eating.

meta-ish by tangentialist at 08:52 PM on 06 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)