As if on cue with the sudden hot weather, a new ice cream shop recently opened in the Mōʻiliʻili neighborhood.
“We’ve been wanting to do this forever,” says business owner Robert Duong, who says that the ice cream took the spot of a Mediterranean restaurant. “The community’s been so good to us.”
Castaways Ice Cream offers ice cream in a variety of flavors, ranging from vanilla bean, salted caramel and chocolate chip cookie to more unique options like rum raisin, blackberry pie and pandan with coconut.
Duong says the ice cream is made with premium ingredients and high-quality equipment.
“We have a blast freezer,” he says. “The blast freezer freezes the ice cream within three or four hours. The longer it takes to freeze, the more ice develops. You don’t want icy ice cream; you want creamy ice cream. It’s (the blast freezer) worth it — the ice cream freezes real fast and it keeps that creaminess.
“We have traditional ice cream flavors, but for matcha, we use real matcha,” he adds. “We use real cookies for cookie sand cream; if you want mango, we use real mango.”
Choose your cup size — keiki ($3.99), regular ($5.99) and large ($8.49) — and, before you decide on a flavor (or two), you can have as many samples as you like, which is a win in my book.
Of the samples I tried, the Payday flavor — inspired by the candy bar — was one of my favorites (and the one i ultimately ended up getting). The candy bar is a mix of caramel and salted peanuts; while there’s no crunchy texture in the ice cream, I loved the salty-sweet flavor.
You can take your dessert to the next level by adding Ghirardelli chocolate sauce, Ghirardelli caramel sauce or Reese’s peanut butter sauce (additional $1.49). If you love peanut butter, it’s a worthwhile extra. The sauce is given in a small cup, so you can add it to your ice cream at your leisure.
The shop also offers cereal-infused or fruit-infused milkshakes ($9.75 each). Cereal options include Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, Reese’s Puffs and more. We tried a vanilla shake with Cocoa Puffs. It was thick and creamy and especially satisfying on a sweltering afternoon.
“People think vanilla is generic, but vanilla is good if you’re using real vanilla and beans,” Duong says.
CONTACT
Castaways Ice Cream
2346 S. King St., Honolulu
Instagram: @castawaysicecream
Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and Sundays, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays
Kelli Shiroma Braiotta can be reached at kelli@alohastatedaily.com.
