Ice Cream Singapore Style

As recent as ten years ago, these old men made their ice cream from scratch, hand-churning the stuff and peppering the "everything"... with chopped-up bits of atap chee (palm fruit), the chewy "flesh from the young seeds of the mangrove plant Nypa fruticans" that had been soaked in rose syrup. These days, the ice cream is likely to be supplied by commercial ice cream makers Wall's, Magnolia, or King's. If the food gods are smiling on you though, you may just chance upon a vendor who still adds chopped-up bits of atap chee to his "everything." Go ahead and ask, "Uncle, is there atap chee in there?"

[ Serious Eats ]

I don't care much for my ice cream in wonder bread (although that's Yaty's serving suggestion of choice), but I can't get enough Palm Fruit (aka Palm Nut aka Atap Chee [Singapore] aka Kaong [Philippines] aka Buah Atap [Indonesia]) and drenched in rose syrup? Yum-o! Apparently this is a significant ingredient in some people's Halo-Halo [Philippines] which reminds me a ton of Bingsoo [Korea] and even a bit of Es Buah [Indonesia].