Chinatown Ice Cream Dragon: There Can Be Only One
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:
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:
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)
18 Arhans, Never Enough
Okay, let's start with the Buddhist Nun today.
For years, I had passed this little storefront on Centre Street -- vegetarian food, a few people inside, rumored to be a shrine of some sort. I wrote it off as Hare Krishna and headed down to Excellent Dumpling House for my lunches. A few years back, though, I accompanied a couple of friends to 18 Arhans and was Totally Blown Away. No dish cost more than five dollars, the food was great, and the small Buddhist nun who ran the place sold this great bottled honey green tea that I could never find anyplace else. What's more, after I went back twice more, she had remembered my name.
Now that I go there about twice or three times a week, I've begun to notice that she remembers everybody's name, though a lot has changed about 18 Arhans since I first ate there. She and her partner had to raise prices to about $6.50 a dish, which is still way cheap, as far as I'm concerned. There's more seating, and a wider selection of beverages (I think I actually saw cases of Pepsi there the other day), though she now makes her own green tea drinks and stopped carrying the delicious bottled stuff that I still can't find. Business has soared lately, and I'm not sure whether it's due to the subtle changes in the decor or just the gradual exponential growth from word-of-mouth advertising. Still, the nun takes everybody's order and continues to make little jokes about the total ("Eight... Hundred... Dollars") as she shuffles back to her seat in the back of the room, across from the giant iron axe at the shrine to the warrior bodhisattva Guan Gong. I don't really ever see anybody at the shrine, but I always look over at Guan when I'm done eating my mock kung pao, if that counts for anything.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I am in love with 18 Arhans. It's one of those places you wish would branch out to other locations but that never will, if only because it's too hard to replicate a bunch of little nuns who know your name.
chinatown-ish , food-ish by tangentialist at 06:41 PM on 24 Jan 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)