Malai Ice Cream

I have a label on my blog entirely devoted to ice cream, as it is a food group that makes a daily appearance in my life. I'm always excited to find new brands, particularly those that are local, and particularly those that make more unique flavors.

"Malai, figuratively meaning “cream of the crop,” in a North Indian language, is an ice cream company that draws inspiration from globally-sourced whole ingredients, aromatic spices, and unexpected twists on old classics. "

Chocolate Coffee Cardamom Ladoo.

I discovered Malai Ice cream, a spice forward scoop shop in New York (also with locations in DC and Philadelphia, but they use New York dairy so I consider them local to here), at the annual Summer Fancy Foods Show in July.  It was there that I tried their newest product, ladoos, basically little ice cream bites encased in a chocolate shell, destined for grocery stores soon.  I was drawn in by the flavors, with rose, mango, passionfruit, saffron, chai, and cardamom all jumping out.  I got the chocolate coffee cardamom one, and I remember quite liking it, but I don't have notes from that event.

A few weeks passed, and it was a beautiful summer day, and I decided to take my co-workers on an excursion, to their actual scoop shop in the West Village.  The group had members who were as excited as I was for the less common flavors, and it had a few who were like "where's my cookie dough or cookies & cream, help!".  But everyone ended up enjoying their selections, and the staff were very patient with our slow pace of decision making (luckily no one else was there).

Hard Serve.

They had 12 flavors of hard serve available by the scoop.  These change every other month.  They allow you to sample up to 4 flavors, which I really appreciated.  I tried two:

Sweet Corn Saffron
"Summer seasonal. Using the natural sweetness of summer corn, mellowed by the honey-like notes of saffron, this pairing is perfect for the warmer months."

I was so excited for this one, but the flavor was pretty muted, I didn’t taste sweet corn.

Rose with Cinnamon Roasted Almonds.

"Our most popular! Sweet, floral and spiced - there is nothing that this ice cream doesn't hit. It's unlike anything you've had before, in the best possible way!"

This was great, a pretty color, and good flavor.  If I wanted hard scoop style ice cream, I would have gotten this.  Easy to see why it is their most popular flavor.

Co-workers really enjoyed their choices of guava chile, pineapple pink peppercorn, and saffron pistachio.

Mango Lassi Special.

There are also two flavors of soft serve available, and these change out even more often, usually monthly.

I sampled the special swirl with cardamom yogurt and mango sorbet, e.g. the “mango lassi” and I liked it, but the mango sorbet dominated more than I like, given that I’m not generally into sorbet very much.  I was very tempted to get the swirl as my dish though.

Cardamom Yogurt. $7.

"Tangy yogurt spiced with warm and floral cardamom.”

In the end, I opted for just the simple soft serve yogurt.  It was an attractively swirled cone.

The soft serve was smooth and creamy, pretty rich, not icy.  Not too sweet.  The cardamom was faint and I’d prefer stronger, but it was good. 3.5/5.

I ordered a cone because I like my soft serve in a cone (it is just a thing of mine), but they had only waffle cones, which I don’t actually like nearly as much as a basic cake cone.  It was a big, fresh cone, but not what I actually wanted, which I realized only after I had it in my hand.  I wouldn’t get a cone again.