Recipes
Browse by: Dish Type Ingredient Cuisine Cooking Method Diet Season Menus Recipe Collections Quick Dinners View All
How-Tos
Cooking Techniques Ingredient Guides Equipment Kitchen Tips Entertaining View All
Product Recs
Equipment Reviews Taste Tests Buying Guides Editors' Picks Books Shop View All
Culture
Cuisine Guides Food History Food Science Personal Essays Travel Diaries Profiles Food Industry SE HQ View All
Dining Out
Boston Chicago Los Angeles New Orleans New York Philadelphia Portland, OR San Francisco Washington, DC View All
Your account
Saved Recipes >
Follow us
Recipes
Browse by: Dish Type Ingredient Cuisine Cooking Method Diet Season Menus Recipe Collections Quick Dinners View All
How-Tos
Cooking Techniques Ingredient Guides Equipment Kitchen Tips Entertaining View All
Product Recs
Equipment Reviews Taste Tests Buying Guides Editors' Picks Books Shop View All
Culture
Cuisine Guides Food History Food Science Personal Essays Travel Diaries Profiles Food Industry SE HQ View All
Dining Out
Boston Chicago Los Angeles New Orleans New York Philadelphia Portland, OR San Francisco Washington, DC View All
Saved recipes >

Search for recipes and articles

Popular Searches

Staff Favorites

  • Burgers
  • Korean
  • Corn
  • Manhattan
  • Soho
More Breadcrumbs
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Manhattan
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Manhattan
  • Soho

Street Food: An Icy Introduction Brings Caribbean Snoballs to Noho

Street Food

The best food from the street.

Sam Levison
0 Printer-Friendly Version
Published: August 7, 2012 Last Updated: August 9, 2018
20120806-an-icy-introduction-kafi.jpg

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

After years working as an IT consultant with no professional culinary background, Kafi Dublin, a talkative woman with boundless energy and plenty of stories, decided upon a career change. Earlier this summer, she started selling snoballs, the frozen shaved ice treats of her Caribbean heritage, at a pop-up stand on the street that she calls An Icy Introduction.

What exactly is a snoball? It's essentially the best snowcone you've ever had. Snoballs combine fluffy, finely shaved ice with a variety of syrups and toppings like condensed milk. Flavors vary wildly, especially at An Icy Introduction, which boasts over a hundred. Kafi has channeled many flavors from her childhood, such as a bright, spicy Ginger Beer ($4 each for a very hefty small) that features bits of ginger in the syrup, and the Peanut Punch, a knockout of raw sugar, peanut butter, warm spices, and a peanut-condensed milk topping.

20120702-shaved-ice-ginger-beer.jpg

Ginger Beer. [Photograph: Dave Katz]

The treats are on the sweet side, but they boast a depth of flavor that corn-syrupy snowcones wish they could begin to approximate. Kafi's months of testing and research have yielded a thick syrup recipe starring Caribbean muscavado, a dark, unrefined sugar to which she adds filtered water and flavoring extracts (many homemade; others, like "egg custard tart," purchased from commercial operations that keep to a short, natural ingredient list).

She's set up shop outside BrowNY, a vintage clothing store on Lafayette Street near Bleecker. "The vintage vibe of the store perfectly matched the vibe of the retro dessert," she says. The stand is a more easygoing alternative to a truck ("No way, very frustrating"); though she's not ready for a brick and mortar right now, she hopes to open a full-size sweet shop all on her own.

20120702-shaved-ice-anti-depressant.jpg

The Antidepressant. [Photograph: Dave Katz]

Kafi also sells snocreams, which incorporate thicker, creamier flavorings like sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche, in a cross between shaved ice and melted ice cream. One such creation, the Antidepressant, is pretty hard to resist. Chocolate-Coffee syrup gets laid down before Kafi dresses the snoball with generous squirts of dulce de leche and condensed milk. What do you get? The blended mocha of the summer, with a healthy dose of real brewed coffee.

Though the classics (and not-so-classics) are thoroughly delicious, Kafi's newest flavor hints at the magic she can concoct with only some sugar, flavorings and shaved ice. Thai Iced Tea tastes something like a refreshing Christmas—lots of spices (allspice, cloves, anise) join Thai tea, condensed milk and a hefty helping of sugar syrup to make what is currently Kafi's (and my) favorite flavor. The layers work particularly well here; you can taste hits of tea in one bite and rich milk in another. As the snoball melts, it becomes more like a spiced tea frappucino, which tastes as good as it sounds. You can also find fruit flavors aplenty, from apple to peach to mango to strawberry.

Great shaved ice can be hard to find beyond the city's Chinatowns or the itinerant Wooly's cart. Kafi's sweet, refreshing treats are just as worthy an option. We're looking forward to see where Kafi will take An Icy Introduction, but for now we'll just keep buying her snoballs.

An Icy Introduction

Outside BrowNY at 345 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012 (map)
anicyintroduction.com

All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.

Sam Levison Burger / New York Contributor
  • Profile
  • Twitter
  • Contact

Sam Levison is a college student, SE intern and cheeseburger addict.

0 Printer-Friendly Version
Tags
  • an icy introduction
  • manhattan
  • noho
  • shaved ice
  • snoballs
  • street food
  • Manhattan
  • Soho
More Breadcrumbs
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Manhattan
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Manhattan
  • Soho
HIDE COMMENTS
Sign In or Register
No comments
Comments are closed
HIDE COMMENTS

Popular Recipes

Christmas

The Best Crispy Roast Potatoes Ever

These are the crispiest, most flavorful roast potatoes you'll ever make.

J. Kenji López-Alt
Beef

Chinese-American Beef and Broccoli With Oyster Sauce

J. Kenji López-Alt
Appetizers and Hors d'Oeuvres

The Best Basic Guacamole

A simple and easy guacamole for any occasion.

J. Kenji López-Alt
British

The Best Yorkshire Pudding

Tall and light with a crisp shell and a lightly chewy center.

J. Kenji López-Alt

More Manhattan

Secrets of Minetta Tavern's Black Label Burger

Secrets of Minetta Tavern's Black Label Burger

What We're Eating: Lard Bread

What We're Eating: Lard Bread

The Best Falafel Sandwich in New York City

The Best Falafel Sandwich in New York City

Serious Eats
  • Latest
  • Masthead
  • Contact
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Jobs
  • Sitemap
  • FAQ

Follow Us

  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Your California Privacy Rights
  • © 2021 Serious Eats Inc., by Dotdash

Welcome! Please sign in.

Forgot password?