It is an exciting day for dairy free ice cream lovers. The world’s first oatmilk soft serve ice cream shop opened in ChinaTown: Whipped Urban Dessert Lab, a Black-owned female business. It is 100% vegan and plant based, with options for every ice cream lover and the promise of soft and creamy ice cream. 

After a short thirty minute subway ride, I arrived at the ice cream shop. It was small and quaint, nestled between two buildings that were a part of the Tenement Museum. The line to get inside wasn’t too long, I only had to wait for about ten minutes before entering the store. There was a limit of four customers inside, so it wasn’t crowded or breaking any COVID restrictions. 

Instead of speaking directly to the employees, there was an iPad which you place your order on, which limits social interaction. There are a wide variety of options to choose from: you can build your own or choose from a hand-selected fusion, such as salted pecan, mint chocolate cookie and coffee waffle crunch, for $8.95. There are also soft serve truffles such as cinnamon apple crisp and salted chocolate pecan for $7.25. They even have sundae floats, including cafe oat liate sundae float, oat float with natural coca cola, and oat float with natural pineapple juice for $7.50. 

Building your own ice cream consists of choosing from a cup or a cone, and then choosing either a vanilla sweet creme or the whipped twists (chocolate and vanilla sweet creme) base, which costs $5.25. After choosing the base, there are many sauces and crumb coats to add, for $1.25 each. The crumb coats include pretzels, waffle cone pieces, chocolate cookie crumble, strawberry crumble, cinnamon spice crumble, salted pecan, rainbow sprinkles and sugar cone pieces. The sauces include chocolate, peanut butter, coffee, strawberry, mink chocolate and apple. 

Everything is dairy free, egg free, and soy free. Some of the crumb coats and sauces are also gluten free and nut free. All of the ice cream is made with a base of oatmilk, unlike most dairy free ice creams that are made with almond milk, soy, cashew and coconut. Not only do oats make delicious and creamy ice cream, but it is sustainable with a low carbon footprint. 

The oats aren’t the only part of the store that is sustainable. The cups are paper and the spoons are wooden so everything is recyclable. The only plastic in the whole store were plastic gloves to touch the iPad in order to stay COVID safe. 

I will never forget the first time I took a bite of the ice cream. I had opted for the whipped twist base in a cup with a rainbow sprinkle crumb coat. It was so light and airy, it basically melted in my mouth and sent an explosion of flavors throughout my tastebuds. The sprinkles added a colorful and sweet crunch to every bite. Not only were the sprinkles packed onto the top, there were also a handful of them at the bottom. They do this with every crumb coat, they put some on the bottom of the cone or top and then pack it onto the top of the ice cream so there is no shortage of crumb coat. While I didn’t get a sauce, they put a very generous amount on every cup/cone. 

Eden Zamir, who accompanied me to the store says that, “it is really good and I could hardly tell it wasn’t real dairy.” The thick and rich ice cream could fool any dairy lover into thinking it is made with cow’s milk. I have never had dairy free ice cream that good, and I would definitely go again despite it being a bit pricey. 

The only thing I would change about the store would be implementing sizes on the menu. Although everything was packed tightly and generously, having size options to choose from would make it easier to choose the amount of ice cream you want to consume. Other than that, I absolutely loved it and recommend it to anyone who is looking for good dairy free ice cream, and all ice cream lovers.