Hip Hairdresser & Wife ‘Fry’ Ice Cream To Order At Chinatown Hawker Stall
Dessert with a bit of a show.
In a quiet corner of Chinatown Complex, hawker James Chiun, 48, is busily scraping and ‘frying’ frozen bits of cream on his frozen metal counter. He looks quite the hipster with his ponytail, black gloves and stylish apron. He is making rolled ice cream, a Thai street food that briefly trended in Singapore a few years ago. Like its name states, it’s made by freezing then rolling flavoured cream together with mix-ins like fruit on a metal sheet, into mini cylinders.
Though the sweet treat was everywhere in pasar malams just a few years ago, it’s hard to find it in Singapore these days. But now, you can try James’ version at his new stall, Roll & Chill Ice Cream.
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Roll & Chill opened in November 2023, and is owned by James and his wife Candy Deng, 40, who used to be a homemaker. James admits that he’d “never tried rolled ice cream before”, but decided to sell it instead of regular ice cream because “[they’ve] not seen it being sold in hawker centres”.
This is the duo’s first hawker venture, though they previously ran a home-based ice cream biz during the Covid period called Freeze Treats SG, where they sold tubs of homemade ice cream.
James also used to work as a hairdresser at a salon in Orchard - a job he still does part-time today. He tells 8days.sg that he became a hawker as he “wanted to find a job he can do even in his seventies, to help kill time”.
So far, he shares that business hasn’t stabilised yet: “sometimes we make profits, but most of the time we break even or lose money”. While they aren’t earning a sustainable amount yet, the couple plan to wait and see if the business picks up over time.
Why are they located in a hawker centre that’s mostly frequented by seniors, not quite the ideal target crowd for ice cream? James says it’s simply because the stall was available during his balloting process. Besides, he says older folks surprisingly make up the bulk of their customers now.
Made with real fruits
James and Candy learned how to make rolled ice cream from YouTube videos. They spent the first month of operations perfecting their ice cream recipe, even offering a “pay what you want” promo letting customers pay however much (or little) they wanted, because they “found that [their] rolled ice cream at the time was not able to roll very well yet”. The lowest amount they received was a shocking 13 cents from a middle-aged office worker. While James “didn’t feel bad” about this amount, he admits that he was surprised by the low sum.
James premixes two types of milk (plus whipping cream for flavours like chocolate) and flavourings such as puréed frozen fruit. Once an order comes in, he proceeds to perform his show at the chilled counter, sometimes adding whole fruit to this liquid premix for texture as he 'fries' everything to create a simple ice cream. Think the dessert version of a teppanyaki chef. Sorta.
The menu
Roll & Chill sells three types of ice cream - Soft Serve ($3.50), Roll Mix ($5), and Chill Mix ($6.50). Their soft serve flavours rotate every few weeks, and is the only item sourced from a local distributor. Depending on the week, patrons can expect flavours like strawberry, matcha, sea salt and grape.
Meanwhile, the Roll Mix (rolled ice cream) and Chill Mix are made on the spot, the latter like slab ice cream (basically cream frozen into chunks of ice cream). To order, patrons can choose from eight base flavours like chocolate, matcha and yam, and top off their ice cream with a chocolate, blueberry or strawberry drizzle.
Both the rolled and chilled ice creams come with standard toppings of Oreo cookie bits, marshmallows, biscuits, Pocky sticks and a mini cone. If you’d like to add more, you can choose four additional toppings for an extra $2.
Chocolate Roll Mix, $5
Our chocolate ice cream came with four rolls. It wasn’t especially rich even though it’s made with melted chocolate. But we appreciate the fact that it wasn’t too sweet. The rolls stuck together quickly so we couldn’t pick each piece individually. Instead, we spooned them up like regular ice cream. The mouthfeel is creamy, but slightly icy and chewier than usual. Quite fun to eat, but don’t expect super smooth ice cream. It went well with the crunchy cookie toppings, though we could do without the tangy yoghurt balls.
Blueberry Chill Mix, $6.50
This is essentially rolled ice cream before being rolled. Served in thicker chunks, we got this with bits of chopped up berries naturally sweetening the mix and adding a slightly gritty mouthfeel. We prefer the rolled ice cream.
Soft Serve, $3.50
On the day we went, James only had the sea salt soft serve available. We’re not sure about its striking shade of aqua blue. It’s milky, not too sweet, mildly salty, but slightly icy like sorbet. Quite refreshing.
Roll & Chill Ice Cream is located at #02-035 Chinatown Complex, 335 Smith St, S050335. Open daily except Fri 1pm - 8pm. More info via their Instagram.
Photos: Aik Chen
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