Freezing Point Creamery Matcha Rolled Ice Cream: Originating from Thailand, rolled ice cream is a technique for making fresh ice cream from scratch to order. Liquid ice cream base is poured onto a cold metal pan (think crepe-grill-sized) and is then mixed, scraped, and chopped by hand before its spread into a single, solidified layer. At this point, the scraper is used to roll the ice cream into individual pieces resembling fruit roll up / mini crepes, looking nothing like your typical scoop of ice cream. I ended up at Freezing Point Creamery, a small rolled ice cream shop at the edge of Oakland's Chinatown, not because I was specifically seeking out this new fad but because my mom really needed a place to use the bathroom. The $7 price tag (there is only one size) was a bit of a turnoff, but we decided to give their matcha flavor with red bean, cubes of mochi, and pirouline wafers a try. While waiting for the ice cream to be made, we were offered free samples of their housemade ice cream available by the scoop. Their ginger ice cream was excellent, with an impressive amount of heat. I was hoping this quality would carry over into the rolled ice cream product, but overall, I found the texture of the rolled ice cream to be its biggest fault – its extremely dense and difficult to break through with a spoon. And there is so much of it - it felt like the cup needed to be split among 3 or 4 people, not two. The mochi tasted a bit stale, and the adzuki beans were definitely straight out of a can. While the portions are generous, generosity is only a good thing when the product itself is desirable. The $7 price tag likely stems from labor costs – I could tell it takes a significant amount of upper body strength to be able to make ice cream using this method. Ultimately, rolled ice cream is like the teppanyaki of the ice cream world – you can dazzle with showy knife-work, but in the end, onion volcanos are still just (mostly) raw onions. 2.0/5.0

icecream oakland freezingpointcreamery matcha rolled ice cream 2.0