AHH!!! 🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦 Museum of Ice Cream!
Where do I even begin?!
STORY: After waiting nearly two months (we purchased our tickets together back in early July, apparently tickets sold out in five days!), today (as in August 27) was the day! MOIC was located on Gansevoort Street, and across the street from the Whitney Museum. (How coincidental is that? Haha).
I met up with my ice cream team there around 2:40 pm. We had tickets for 3-4 pm. The line in front of us was long, and there was a checker who would come out every five minutes or so to check in with everyone, "All here for the 3 pm, right? 3 pm? 3 pm? 2:30? Come right this way". So it seemed like a pretty informal check in. There was a couple who had just got into line behind us, and when they said they had no tickets, the checker said, "Sorry :( I'm all sold out!" I also discovered that ticket scalpers also looked at MOIC, since a friend mentioned tickets were being sold and auctioned at around $100 on eBay. 😱
At 3 pm, the line started moving. Turns out they were letting in groups of 6-8 people in every few minutes. When our group of six was let in, we walked past a photo booth that used Boomerang. Really cute!
We were greeted with the first ice cream station, which the server introduced us to the flavor of the week, provided by Chinatown Ice Cream Factory! So it seemed every week, the ice cream was provided by a different creamery. She reached from underneath where the freezer was, and pulled out several cups of ice cream, placing them on the counter.
We each took one, and here's the review!
WHAT: Taro ice cream cup!
⚪️ Ice Cream Base: Taro
⚫️ Toppings: Lychee Boba & Strawberry Cream Pocky
WHERE: Museum of Ice Cream, 1st ice cream stop
Creativity: 😉😉😉😉😉
Presentation: 😎😎😎
Taste: 😋😋😋😋
Texture: 😜😜😜😜
Value: 😄😄😄😄😄
Overall Experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THOUGHTS: Delicious! Looks odd with the purple and being melted, however it tastes much better than it looks! On first scoop I spooned up several popping boba, which packed a refreshing and sweet punch to the taro ice cream. Though melted, the ice cream was creamy, though not as much as I'd like it to be. One smiley was taken off for Taste since I believe the taro ice cream was subtle, and demurred to the strawberry boba that had the stronger and fruity flavor. I really enjoyed the popping boba! It was the star of the ice cream cup. The strawberry pocky? Eh. It looked pretty but tasted like an afterthought.
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Yum. Immediately after eating the ice cream, our next stop was a helium candy. It is a giant bubble that you can EAT! Our server made each bubble (which measured 8-10" tall) from a pump, and the bubble was blown through a Tropicana striped straw. While it had no taste, it was a lot of fun to play around with! One of our friends played with it so much that it actually burst onto her face lol!
Next stop was a "Did you know?" station. A guy dressed in all white greeted us, and as soon as we had everyone gathered, he quizzed and briefed us on the history of ice cream.
* Fun fact: The Chinese is credited with creating the first ice cream, possibly as early as 3000 BC!
*Another fun fact: George Washington spent $200 on ice cream, which is $5000 today! :O
Next up! The Chocolate room. This was definitely a transitional space. And it was the waiting room for the pool of SPRINKLES! It was a dark room measuring about 10' x 15' wide. Dimly lit, the room had several large screens screening streams of chocolate intertwining with each other... very sensual, as a friend pointed out :P There was also a large inflatable black mattress that you could throw yourself onto. The best part of this room, was the infinite supply of Dove dark chocolate. I ate three. And took four. For later. 😜 Our group waited about 10 minutes, and then FINALLY it was our turn!
SPRINKLES TIME! We were told to take off our shoes, and with them place our belongings to the side. Oh, and no diving, please. Okay.
After a few seconds of aww, we jumped, or rather, fell right in. SO MUCH fun!! We immediately started throwing sprinkles around and wading around. It was hard to move!! And then,
"Uh oh! I think I lost my phone!"
*gasps all around*
We all quickly rummaged around in the sprinkles, and then JH found it! Thankfully it hadn't been buried too deep. We started playing around in the sprinkles, taking photos, videos... all in the sprinkles! The pool of sprinkles smelled slightly stale, and I wondered if the museum crew ever sanitizes these sprinkles... Anyway, with our group we also had a couple who was playing around in the pool. After many photo ops and throwing sprinkles at each other, our 'guide' told us we had about two minutes left in the pool and we would need to leave for the next stop. One of the most epic moments in the pool was KD SWIMMING, breaststroke style 😝 It was very funny to watch. And then we looked up, and saw our reflection in a ceiling mirror!
It felt like no time passed, and then we were told our time with sprinkles was over! Next to where we had placed our belongings was a shelf with many jars of candy - swedish fish, sour patch, you name it. All free and you can take however much you want to! My friends took a whole lot xD
We walked into the next room, where we would learn about the magical Miracle Berry - which turns sour into sweet, whatever you eat! Eating lemons afterward? It would be sweet. The miracle berry docent gave us each a tablet, which was a reddish colored and dime-sized. We had to let it dissolve in our mouths, and whatever we tasted for the next 30 minutes would be sweet.
We then got the ice cream with LEMON SLICES (interesting combination) wedged onto the cone - here's the review of the ice cream!
WHAT: Vanilla soft serve + Lemon!
⚪️ Ice Cream Base: Vanilla
⚫️ Toppings: Lemon wedge (2)
WHERE: Museum of Ice Cream, 2nd ice cream stop
Creativity: 😉😉😉
Presentation: 😎😎😎
Taste: 😋😋😋😋
Texture: 😜😜😜
Value: 😄😄😄😄😄
Overall Experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THOUGHTS: Hmm. After being given a miracle berry, and letting it dissolve on my tongue, we were handed soft serve ice cream. The two color swirls do not mean anything to my disappointment, I was hoping for a flavor kick. It still tasted like vanilla though :P But good, milky vanilla! Not like those water-based soft serve, which I dislike.
Once I bit into the lemon wedges, wow! It was (mostly) sweet lemon that should have been sour! The miracle berries worked! After chewing and savoring the sweet lemon juice, I proceeded to finish my ice cream. No real flavor change, just normal vanilla. I'm not a huge fan of soft serve, so this ice cream didn't wow me that much.
I really enjoyed the lemon slices - it tasted like sweet with a hint of sour, liquid candy. As I chewed through the cone, at the very bottom in the crevice were green chocolate covered sprinkles. I really appreciate that touch!
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The space we were in while we ate the soft serve ice cream was the second to last stop, and you could see outside of the museum storefront. At that point, it was an open gallery space featuring various artwork of ice cream. There was a vendor selling all items ice cream (and the miracle berries) - ice cream earrings, ice cream jewelry, and even an ice cream phone case! I really wanted the phone case, however it's meant for an iPhone 6 :( guess I'll find one for my 5!
The very last space we visited before exiting, was what I would call the playroom. It had an ice cream sandwich swing set, a seesaw shaped like an ice cream scoop, and a playfully wallpapered wall serving as backdrops for taking photos. PHOTO TIME!!
🍦 More Thoughts
Short museum experience. It was a short museum experience. Our time slot was from 3-4 pm, and while I think we did entered just before 3 pm, we came out at 3:40 pm. This museum was so hyped up that the time we spent in there and what we saw should have been longer. At each station we were probably there for a minimum of five minutes, max ten minutes.
Connectthe room experiences to each other. Helium candy? Chocolate room? Sprinkles? Each space had its distinct theme, but I don't see them as purely tied to ice cream. Also, in the chocolate room we had nothing to do except wait and eat chocolate. If you're going to work with chocolate, do something fun with it!!
Visualize the historyof ice cream. Words will come in and out of our ears, and if we see it, we'll most likely be able to remember it more.
Highlight of MOIC to be ice cream related. Yes, the pool of sprinkles was awesome. However, I strongly feel that the highlight of MOIC should have been purely ice cream, and not sprinkles (which is a topping!! Sprinkles should have its own museum then lol). (Also, literally my only takeaway from MOIC were sprinkles in my clothes...basically as I walked out of the museum, I left a trail of sprinkles LOL).
I hope MOIC comes around again, seeing as how fun and popular it was! If it does, I sincerely hope they increase the information you learn about ice cream, to how it's manufactured, how many different types of ice cream there are, how it's eaten/served throughout the world, etc. The list goes on.
More ice cream, please! 🍦
Yay!!