Listen to this article
Estimated 3 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
LISTEN | Full interview with Red Circle Ice Cream owner Nickey Ngo:As It Happens6:25Texas shop's crawfish ice cream is so popular, it keeps selling out
Every January, at the start of crawfish season, Houston ice cream shop owner Nickey Ngo's phone starts ringing off the hook.
The customers, she says, have one question: When will Red Circle Ice Cream's signature crawfish ice cream be back on the menu?
The ice cream — flavoured with a mix of Cajun seasoning, butter and garlic then topped with an entire crustacean — may sound like a novelty food trend. But in the seven years Ngo has been serving it up, she says, it's become a staple of her business.
"I can't even explain how popular it is," Ngo told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. "If I didn't have the demand for it … then I wouldn't be making it. I wouldn't be that crazy."
It all started at a Ngo family summer crawfish boil in 2019.
"I'm eating and the juices are flowing and I'm licking my fingers and I'm just [like], 'Mmm, it's so good.' My sister's sitting next to me and she's like, 'You should make this into a crawfish ice cream,'" Ngo said.
"Ding, ding, ding, ding! Light bulb went off. I go into my test kitchen literally the next morning and in one shot, I created this ice cream flavour, and crawfish ice cream was born."
WATCH | Customers flock to Red Circle for the signature ice cream:Red Circle Ice Cream in Houston is once again serving up its surprisingly popular spring and summer staple: ice cream flavoured with butter, garlic — and crawfish. 'Don’t kiss anybody after I give you the sample,' warns owner Nickey Ngo.The ice cream base is flavoured with a mix of seasonings, garlic and butter, then cooked with live crawfish to draw out the flavour.
There's no actual crawfish meat in the ice cream itself.
"Nobody wants to eat a frozen crawfish tail, let's be honest. So we thought a more creative way would be to top it off with a fresh crawfish," she said.
"There's no rules, obviously. But we recommend you use the crawfish body itself, the actual head or the tail, and you scoop it up and you eat it with the actual crawfish, and that is your spoon."
Ngo says the best way to eat crawfish ice cream is to use the shellfish's head or tail as a spoon. (Reuters)The key to the dish's longevity, she says, is the perfect balance of sweet and savoury.
She didn't want to create a flavour that "sits on your tongue kind of weird."
"So I was like, how do you make it creamy at the same time?" she said. "So we added butter. Lots and lots of butter."
Red Circle flavours its signature crawfish ice cream with a sweet and savoury mix of Cajun spices, garlic, and 'lots and lots of butter,' cooked with live crawfish. (Reuters)Customer Lauren Moore, trying it for the first time, says the flavour profile works.
"It's like, a little salty, but it’s like, creamy, smooth," she said. "A little spicy.”
Customer Ali Muhammad called it "really good."
“It’s different. It’s, like, not your typical ice cream, for sure," he said. "But, I mean, it’s really worth a try."
Crawfish season in Texas typically starts in late January and lasts through July, but the little shellfish are at peak freshness in the spring, which is when Ngo starts serving up her signature dish.
She plans to keep it on the menu as long as she can.
"We have sold out multiple times already," she said.