Seafood ice cream an unlikely hit
STRANGE COMBO:: A local entrepreneur has found a recipe for success
after expanding her menu to include a range of frozen desserts like
strawberry tuna and wasabi cuttlefish
AFP , KEELUNG
Saturday, Nov 12, 2005,Page 2
An employee of Liny Hsueh's ``Dr. Ice'' shop prepares ice cream made of
seafood in Keelung's Bisha port in this Oct. 23 file photo. Salty,
pungent seafood does not seem ideally suited to sweet and soft ice
cream, yet Hsueh Hsueh has managed to find a harmony between the two to
create the nation's only seafood-flavored frozen desserts line.
PHOTO: AFP
Savoury ice cream has become a popular fad in trendy Western
restaurants, but local vendor Liny Hsueh (=E8=96=9B=E9=BA=97=E5=A6=AE) is w=
hipping up
business with an even stranger range of flavors -- seafood.
Hsueh's "Dr. Ice" brand offers ice cream, "snowflake ice" (shaved ice)
and "bubble ice" (thinly shaved ice) made from shrimp, cuttlefish,
tuna, seaweed and laver (purple seaweed) combined with fruits, mint,
wasabi, peanut and wine.
Salty, pungent seafood does not seem ideally suited to traditionally
sweet and soft ice cream, yet Hsueh has managed to find a harmony
between the two to create the nation's only seafood-flavored frozen
desserts line.
The combination might even pique the interest of Ferran Adria, Spain's
experimental chef famed for his startling combinations of seemingly
incongruous ingredients often based on their their similar molecular
structure.
Hsueh's ice cream booth sits amongst stalls at an indoor fish market in
Bisha port (=E7=A2=A7=E7=A0=82=E6=BC=81=E6=B8=AF) in Keelung which tout liv=
e fish, shrimp and
squid swimming in tanks or spread on ice to preserve their freshness.
"I was a little worried that it would taste disgusting and weird."
Peter Lin, a patron of Dr. Ice
She launched Dr. Ice in 2003 and now has two shops in the city better
known by their Chinese name "Shia Bing Hsieh Chiang" (=E8=9D=A6=E5=86=B0=E8=
=9F=B9=E9=86=AC,
"shrimp ice crab sauce").
The 13 flavors on offer include pineapple shrimp, wasabi cuttlefish,
strawberry tuna and mango seaweed, all in stark colors from orange to
green to black.
All are served in white or blue shell on fish-shaped plates and bowls,
and some also come with a sprinkle of small dried fish, roe or chopped
squid.
"I walked by Shia Bing Hsieh Chiang several months ago and entered out
of curiosity. Now I visit the store often with my classmates,"
14-year-old student Yvonne Yen said.
"I like the ice cream here, especially the cuttlefish flavor, because
of the rich texture and lighter sweet taste. The color [black] is
really cool," Yen said.
Peter Lin, a first-time customer who tried shrimp and seaweed flavored
ice cream, said he was surprised that it didn't carry the smell or
salty taste of seafood.
"I was a little worried that it would taste disgusting and weird," the
41-year-old said.
Hsueh's family initially expressed similar skepticism when she
announced she was going to make "snowflakes ice" from shrimp.
"They thought I was crazy because shrimp seemed an impossible
ingredient for frozen desserts," the spirited Hsueh, 45, said.
"I had to find a niche in the crowded market of ice desserts and I
thought that even though Taiwan is an island with abundant oceanic
resources, seafood was never used to make them and I wanted to give it
a try," she said.
Hsueh was also encouraged by an old Taiwanese saying which goes: "The
number one job is selling ice desserts and the number two is being a
doctor."
More inviting still was the dessert market, estimated by industry
watchers at over NT$10 billion (US$298.8 million) a year.
The novelty proved an initial success, with Hsueh greeting the patrons
at her small store and making up to NT$700,000 a month during summer.
In less than a year she opened her second branch shop in Taipei's
bustling Tung Hua Street night market, popular with locals and foreign
tourists, but it flopped and closed after six months.
Hsueh decided to focus her efforts in Keelung and opened a booth in
Bisha fish market last December, developing a new line of seafood
sausage, dumpling and meat balls to make up for the slow winter season.
Now, she is ready to expand again and this time is targeting the sunny
southern part of the country, where ice desserts business has an
average ten-month sales season compared with five in the north.
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214741. Seafood ice cream in Keelung, Taiwan
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