Tivea Koam undertakes a comparative study in frozen cream, and finds overwhelming evidence that coming together to eat ice cream is sweet.

If Cambodia had a national ice cream flavor; what would it be? angkorone.com/lift

Hasn’t it been hot? Do you want to try something sweet and cool with a nice aroma of fruit or chocolate like ice-cream? If your answer is yes, do you have any ideas about which shops provide the best taste, service and prices? Yes or no does not really matter here since I have just gone out to two new spots selling ice-cream to review those shops.   

One of the shops my friends and I visited last week was S K Snow Flake Ice Cream, which is on Sothearos Boulevard in front of Phnom Penh Centre. The shop just opened one month ago and sells 10 different kinds of snow flake ice-cream with a Taiwanese flavour.

We arrived and were welcomed by the waitresses. “Wow, it is a very small shop,” I told myself when I stepped inside. It is very nicely decorated with Chinese songs playing in the background. One wall was coloured yellow and the other side was white with small rectangular pieces of mirrors and photos of ice-cream that made the shop look very nice to hang out in. However, there is no Wi-Fi there.

The tables were all empty, so it was not hard to find the best seats and we could not wait to taste the ice-cream. The price of each plate of ice-cream was $1.48 and we thought that was reasonable. They also provided us with many kinds of add-ons like fresh fruit, biscuits, jelly and dry fruit, which cost $0.37 for each add-on.    

Although there were 10 flavours, we had no choice but to mix the tastes we liked, unlike at the Tutti Frutti Ice Cream Shop. So we ordered four flavours – banana, strawberry, passion and green tea, the one we wanted to try the most.

The strawberry and Kiwi fruit I chose were really strange to me, both in taste and the way it looked as I had never tried snow flake ice-cream before. I think the ice-cream lacked some sweetness and the strawberry flavour smelled funny, while the Kiwi fruit was not fresh and sour to me. My friends and I agreed that the passion flavour was the best we tried.

Even though the ice-cream was not really good for me, my friends did like those flavours and they really had a good time talking and enjoying the environment and decorations the shop provided.

Two days later we went out to try another ice-cream shop called TOTO Homemade Ice Cream & Desert Café, which is on Norodom Boulevard next to Chaktok High School.

TOTO, which we were surprised to learn is a Thai owned company, opened in the city more than one month ago.

The shop is not very big, but Phnom Penh isn’t known for its sprawling ice cream shops, is it? It was well designed with fake flowers, cool wallpaper, and lights dangling from the ceiling. The chairs were also really nice, giving the shop a high class look. It looked like a little princess’s bedroom to me.

Summer Berry ice-cream with three tastes: blueberry yogurt, blueberry and strawberry, which I chose, and it’s absolutely great. It is delicious, cool, sour and sweet with a good smell and the decorations on the plate and glass look very elegant and so appealing.

Wi-Fi is also available free, but I don’t know how fast it is since I did not access it. I can say that it is a relaxed place with romantic English songs played in the shop which is air-conditioned for comfort.

However, I think the price was a little expensive and it was not reasonable for students like us to pay more than $3 just for an ice-cream. Two of my friends complained about the price all the way home, saying “we will not come again since it is really expensive for us”. I agreed with them, but I think the best taste and environment they provided was equal to the price they set.

I would be a poor reviewer is I didn’t mention the poor service, and I don’t think I’m the only person to ever lodge this complaint. One of my friends asked me if the waiter thought he wanted his ice cream tommorow. The other problem was that when we went to pay our bill, we waited for almost 15 minutes. It was very slow service, but I also appreciated the way we were welcomed by the friendly owner of the shop.

You can compare tastes, environments, prices and service of the two shops to decide where to go for your ice-cream, but for me I would rather choose the place with the best taste and environment, even if it was slightly expensive and the service was not so good.