The Best Ice Cream in Taiping

Continuing my tour of the culinary wonders of Taiping, today I look at the hawker stall that serves the best ice cream in Taiping. It is located in the same complex that I wrote about in my post about "The Best Roti in Taiping." If you take Bukit Larut as north, then it is located in the southwest corner of the complex, the second stall in from the road.

It was after drama practice. I was walking by the Lake Gardens, waiting for Trien, so we could eat dinner. That's when I saw Jesse, the guy from New Jersey who lives in Pokok Assam, which is just outside of town, talking to a western couple. He left before I could catch up with them, but eventually I caught up the couple.

When I taught in on Jeju Island in Korea, any time you saw a westerner, you talked to them, because there were so very few of them around. Its a habit I've gotten in to, and haven't been able to break. So I introduced myself to them. They were Australians, and had lived in Taiping for a few years before going back home. We chatted while I was waiting for my wife, who hasn't yet broken the habit of being fashionably late, (at least fashionably late for a Filipina, which varies considerably from what us Americans consider "fashionably late").

When she arrived, we chatted for a couple minutes before they had to leave. They asked where we were going, and we said we were going to the circus grounds hawker stalls to eat. They recommended the place pictured above saying it had the best ice cream in Taiping.

They were right. The place has great ice cream. There are crudely painted pictures on big plywood signboards of the creatively named ice cream dishes offered. The best thing to do is to see what interests you, and ask what is in it. The owner speaks excellent English, so don't worry about any communication problems. He can tell you exactly what is in each item. They all have ice cream, of course, then some variation of fruit and topping. When I say fruit, I mean lots of fruit, both fresh and canned. I had a banana split, Trien had some wild exotic confection, and it was well worth the 8 Ringgit total we paid for them. If we had the same thing in Kl, we would have paid at least twice as much for something not nearly as good.

I repost the map below to remind you where the hawker center is located. Click on it to see the full sized version.

Bon Appetit!