Infusing handcrafted gelato with Asian flavours
Yik Sin and Elissa Pham launching second location of their popular dessert shop
There’s no question — or denying — that turning horsemeat, pizza or turkey stuffing into gelato is a “weird” thing to do.
Some parlours get away with it, occasionally creating deliciousness, but most of the time these novel flavours seem like marketing ploys, attempts to out-wacky the competition or draw tourists.
But ask Yik Sin, 35, why his gelato is infused with ingredients that include black sesame, oolong tea and soursop (a sour-sweet fruit that looks like the spiny offspring of an avocado and pear) and his answer is simple:
“It’s not weird to me,” he says. “These are flavours I grew up on.”
Odd or not, they’ve been selling well at Kekou Gelato on Baldwin St., the Asian gelato shop Sin co-owns with business partner/girlfriend Elissa Pham. So well, in fact, the couple has opened a second location on Queen St., just west of Spadina Ave. And unlike their first small shop, this one will be open during winter.
It will expose their unique, chilly product to a more diverse array of customers who may not be as diehard foodies as those who frequent Baldwin’s eclectic shops.
At this new location, a wide open space in a former vintage clothing shop, Sin and Pham also sell a range of tea lattes and already have a display to house homemade baked goods (red-bean croissant, perhaps? Durian brûlée?).
That’s still in the planning phase — the same kind of experimentation that lead to their innovative gelato flavours.
That is, after Sin and Pham gave up the bar scene for their go-to date night activity, staying home and eating gelato, they say.
Sin, who admits he’s long been addicted to “cold desserts,” and Pham would spend their evenings together visiting gelato parlours and then playing with their favourite flavours at home. Sin, who is Korean, and Pham, who is Vietnamese, just created gelatos from ingredients and foods they loved to eat.
And, Pham says, “the ball kept rolling and we kept thinking of more flavours.”
Kekou has 17 of them for sale at any time — the long, sleek counter is always stocked and staff are happy to give samples. The gelato’s made in the back — handcrafted, of course, and churned in one of two Cattabriga EFFE 6 machines flown in from Italy.
Aside from using only fresh ingredients — gelato maker Nelson Phu, 28, picks up whatever’s fresh that day at market which staff then peel, pit, strain and steep all by hand — they make the base from scratch, with only cream, milk, eggs and sugar (absolutely no fillers or stabilizers whatsoever). As well, Sin and Pham repasteurize all the milk they use — even though it is the same milk we buy in the grocery store.
Two huge silver cylinders — a pasteurizer and cooler — overpower a closet-sized room at the shop’s back.
“We take our quality very seriously,” Sin says. “This helps get rid of any bacteria.”
Their combinations really work — and taste exactly how they’re billed. Lick a scoop of “roasted oolong tea” and get that brilliant, warming rush at the end, just as if you were sipping a mug. The Tsing Tao Peach is a onetwo punch of beer and ripe Ontario fruit.
Even their durian gelato — durian is the stinkiest fruit on earth (think a marathoner’s socks and garbage rotting in the sun) — is assertive to smell, but, like the Asian fruit, it is sweet and mild to taste. And really quite awesome.
Sin and Pham plan to bring back their “winter flavours,” including ginger dark chocolate, for the colder months. And there’s also soft serve. You could eat these scoops in homemade waffle cones plastered with nuts — or better yet, nori. That’s right, salt-lovers, a cone with seaweed. Got an idea for Sourced? Email mhenry@thestar.ca