At the longtime default dessert destination in Manhattan's Chinatown, you're welcome to what the menu board calls "exotic" flavors: they include vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and a dozen or so others. I lean toward "regulars" like red bean and green tea (shown at top), almond cookie, black sesame, and lychee.
Recently I capped off a softshell crab dinner down the block with a small cup, "fresh from the factory," of buko pandan. The former word is a Filipino term for a young coconut, whose silky-soft flesh can easily be scraped from the shell (don't confuse it, as I have, with macapuno). The latter is a family of shrubs and trees whose fragrant leaves add character and pale green color to many Southeast Asian dishes. They combine for a particularly felicitous pairing — but, like softshell crabs, you must catch buko pandan when you can.
Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
65 Bayard St. (Mott St.-Bowery), Manhattan
212-608-4170
www.ChinatownIceCreamFactory.com
