Crawfish ice cream is back by popular demand
It’s crawfish season — and in Houston, that means it’s also crawfish ice cream season.
No, really.
“Well, we’re in Texas!” said Nickey Ngo, owner of Red Circle Ice Cream, on Saturday, as a steady stream of customers visited the shop’s original location, at 6838 Ranchester Drive in southwest Houston.
Several years ago, she explained, she was driving to dinner with her husband when inspiration struck. She thought that year’s crawfish ice cream experiment would be a one-time thing, but because of customer demand, Red Circle decided to bring back the flavor annually, during spring break.
This year, Ngo added, several customers have joked that their crawfish ice cream is an affordable alternative to the traditional crawfish boil experience.
It’s a savory ice cream, with an initial umamibomb burst that mellows into a very mild sweetness, followed by a pleasantly spicy kick. Notes of garlic, butter, cayenne, paprika and more can all be detected, with the spices adding flecks of texture to the silky scoop.
“It tastes like crawfish,” observed my dining companion.
It does!
To be clear, there are no crustaceans in the ice cream itself, although Red Circle serves the scoop with one crawfish perched politely on top. (You can eat this, and Ngo said some customers dip the head in the ice cream before sucking it.)
Red Circle, which opened in 2017, also has locations in Sugar Land and Pearland. It serves a rotating variety of ice cream flavors, made inhouse, with staples including strawberry, vanilla, and a signature “Elmo Crunch” — a version of cookies and cream, red like the Muppet.
In addition to ice cream, made in-house, the store sells churros, in a variety of flavors; macarons; and puffy, crispy Hong Kong-style egg waffles — all of which can be combined, topped and sauced to create a variety of dazzling confections.
Drinks include Vietnamese coffee, Thai iced tea, and several flavors of lemonade and milkshakes, which can be dressed with chamoy or Tajin and bulked up with whipped cream and churro sticks.
One customer, Ngo said, paired the crawfish ice cream with a vanilla macaron to make an icecream sandwich. We weren’t brave enough to try that, but we did find that Red Circle’s cinnamon-sugar churro pairs well with the crawfish ice cream, adding a balancing sweetness and chewiness.
The crawfish ice cream will be available through the end of the week, Ngo says — unless it sells out first.