Enter The Ice Cream Dragon

David at Tangentialism does some great ice cream investigative blogging with a look at the Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and the suspiciously same-dragon-festoned Nolita Ice Cream Factory. David found a letter at the OCICF saying customers "should not be deceived by imitation brands" and that other companies having been using their trademarked images without permission, while some say it is related. Gothamist wonders if the Nolita location (allegedly owned by one of the brothers who run OCICF) tried to get around the trademark situation by only have four Chinese characters, versus Chinatown's five, but from our extremely limited Chinese character reading abilities, we think the missing character is "hang" (rising tone), which refers to a physical space. If anything, Gothamist feels that besides the Nolita Ice Cream Factory's hopes to appeal to gwei lo and ABCs, it's probably trying to siphon the Eileen's Cheesecake business as well as from Ciao Bello's and Rice to Riches' (does anyone still go there) masses. Which now makes us want to get some red bean ice cream.

There was a dumpling war earlier this summer, and Gothamist predicts the next Chinese food staple/standby to have a showdown are the streetcarts that sell those sweet, egg-shaped (sort of like waffles) breads.

Photograph by David Yee

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Food on August 2, 2005 10:40 AM

Comments [rss]

michelle

Egg Cake lady . hm i wonder if i ever went there. :O.

SD

I am sad to hear that the Egg Cake lady closed up shop. I wonder if she passed on her secret recipe to anyone b/c the imitators on Canal just don't compare.

RR

Actually, chinese people oughta know a lot about ice cream since they invented it.

http://inventors.about.com/od/foodrelatedinventions/a/ice_cream.htm

Girl, you know it's true.

stfujessica

the egg cake lady is gone, shes closed up shop. but she has made my days at trans fantabulous, every A i got my mom bought me a celebratory egg cake bag :) awwsomee.

chinatown ice cream factory has been there for as long as i can remember..now they have branched out to flushing - i think it should be called flushing ice cream factory. anyway, its still awesome for the asian flavors like lychee and red bean but for some real ice cream, i suggest il laboratoria del gelato on orchard.

Lady X

u suck

Benny Hinn

enter the ice cream dragon? WTF. Thanx Jen chung in doing your part helping to promote jingoistic asian stereotype puns. It's like when Mcdonalds was marketing for MULAN the disnewy movie and they had a special Sweet and sour sauce for the chicken mcnuggets and the marketing phrase was "It's CHINAMITE!" that's like saying kosher food is "JEWLICIOUS" or soul food "BLACKTACULAR". You should do copy for the NY post chung

rev pays

Chinatown ice cream factory, hipster? hardly.

they've been around since the seventies.

I love their lycee and almond cookie ice cream.

the mango is good too.

Lady X

oooooops, sorry for the double post, and for spelling your name wrong wt.

Lady X

hi wy I think you might think I am another Lady X, I admit that I just started putting comments at Gothamist. Sorry if yr disapointed.

Lady X

hi wy I think you might think I am another Lady X, I admit that I just started putting comments at Gothamist. Sorry if yr disapointed.

wt

Tien. I believe the cake lady is still there. I saw the line once or twice but you have to get there early in the morning.

You have to get there really early in the morning. And Lady X, I haven't seen you for a while. -- Wts

iamasian

You can't be serious!?!?! WTF do Chinese (for that matter all of Asian cuisine) know about ICE CREAM. It's ice cream NOT rice cream. Keep in mind I am asian but let's get real....

Stick to stir-fry and noodles for christs sake.

And yes I've gone into that shi7hole...and it does freaking suck... Who are these people who think that stuff is good?!!?!?

BTW...asians are generally lactose intolerant...that should tell you about what they know about ice cream.

Lady X

hee hee

fat stinking hog

C'mon nobody local eats chinatown ice cream factory. Everybody goes in there cause it looks cool but once they eat the stale ice cream they never go back. Not once. everybody I talk to says that ice cream tastes like doodoo. I mean Haagan daaz is right across. MMMMM. dulce de leche!

Lady X

I think you peopel who always sort of read Gothamist and complain that it advertixxxxes hipstery things could stand to read a blog not written by hipsters, if you know what I mean so you could maybe save your energy.

fat stinking ho

Who cares about Chinatown Ice Cream Factory? The Ice Cream is the worst in the world. the only reason people go there is cause it's so hipstery and looks like it's authentic. If it didn't have that cute endearing dragon they would go out of business in ten seconds. They make most of the money on tshirts anyway. I feel bad for people who romanticize CBGB and the ice cream factory from the tshirts and when they actually go there they get gypped. We needs us a Dairy Queen

tien

well, the listing for the hong kong egg cake company is still up on citysearch, but that doesn't really give me much hope.

in fact, i don't really see the copycats around much either.

byto

when is cecilia tam (aka egg cake lady) there?!? i'll totally play hooky if it means i can have some egg cakes.

my mom and i were regulars for well over a decade. once, i was there with a male friend, and mrs. tam said to me (completely out of the blue) "if you wait any longer to have babies, they're going to come out stupid". ah, i miss her.

fat stinking hog

Rice To riches? 7 bucks for 50 cent rice pudding? just cause you get some 2001 space oddysey futuristic spoon and bowl made out of plastic? I hope the owner burns in hell.