Dubai: In what is a new pitch for dessert in Dubai, a just launched outlet at La Mer offers the rarest scoops of ice-cream, whose flavours are so bizarre they will leave you screaming.
From curry, wasabi and chilli chocolate to ube, ummali and halawa, there are 44 quirky flavours available at I-Scream. And the louder you scream when they hit your taste buds, the more rewarding it can be.
“We just wanted to bring out the child in everyone,” said Rami Halawi, the Lebanese owner of the place, explaining how a Scream Station actually measures your decibel levels and gives you a free topping for an ice cream if you manage a record-worthy pitch.
Cosmopolitan city
So just how did he manage to arrive at the odd flavours? “Dubai is a cosmopolitan city with a mix of different nationalities, so we wanted to come up with something for everyone. Curry for Indians and Pakistanis, ube for those from the Philippines, kashta for the Arabs, chilli chocolate for the Mexicans and so on,” said Halawi.
He said the flavours are authentic. A curry ice-cream for instance actually contains all the ingredients that go into making a curry, so it has a distinctive taste. Each scoop irrespective of the flavour costs Dh15. Halawi said I-Scream sells around 120 flavours, of which 44 are bizarre. It also offers 30 different toppings.
Ice-cream at I-Scream is sold under curious categories like Superheroes, Brain Freeze, Sahara, Mrs Sugar, Grand Master Supreme and Big Screamer.
Halawi said, “Brain Freeze uses a beverage like coffee or slush while Sahara contains some form of bread, be it a croissant or chabata bread. Mrs Sugar gives you a choice of pastries in your ice-cream like a brownie, cotton candy or éclair while the Grand Master Supreme is a large waffle cone with ice cream of your choice and all-you-can-have toppings.’”
The Big Screamer is a must-have if you are in a group. It is a big bucket with 20 scoops of ice cream, a big red velvet cake, six muffins, six brownies and lots of toppings.
“It is priced at Dh470 and can be shared by 20-30 people, unless you are brave enough to finish it in a smaller group,” said Halawi. It is intended to serve as a birthday cake or for a big scream celebration that comes with a small show put up by the staff.
The truck ambience at I-Scream adds to the fun factor. Besides the Scream Station whose records keep changing every few days, there’s foosball, hopscotch, hula hoop and PS4 which customers can help themselves to at no extra cost.
