Travel: Big Gay Ice Cream, NYC

Big Gay Ice Cream

Despite visiting New York more times than I care to admit, I still like to do a little research before I visit, as there is always places I may have missed in the past, as well as new venues which have only recently opened. The Big Gay Ice Cream has existed since 2009 (as an ice cream van) and opened their first shop in 2012, so whilst it’s not new, it’s new to me. I kept reading how good it was, so it was on my ‘if-I-see-it-on-my-travels-I-will-go-in’ list. When writer, Suzanne Bearne, contacted me on twitter and told me it *had* to go and get a ‘Salty Pimp’, I knew I had to do it. The very next day, I was there at 12am for opening to get myself a Big Gay Ice Cream! 

Salty Pimp v American Globs 

There is a lot of great items to choose from at the Big Gay Ice Cream menu, but since I had been recommended the ‘Salty Pimp’ by Suzanne, I figured I should order that. As I was looking through the menu (just to be sure), I thought the American Globs looked super tempting. My server gave me a smile and a lift of an eyebrow and suggested I went for the ‘American Gangster’, the off-menu favourite which combines the two. I’m a sucker for anything off-menu and it sounded delicious, so they whipped me one up! 

American Gangster

The ‘American Gangster’ is a classic cone filled with vanilla ice cream and dulce de leche sauce running through it, pretzels with sea salt on top and then dipped in chocolate which instantly hardens. The result is a big ol’ messy vanilla ice cream which is bursting with sea salt, biscuit, caramel and chocolate chunks; Hardcore and oh-my-god-I’m-gonna-die-delicious!

NYC-Essential 

From now on, The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop is on my ‘NYC-Essential’ list. This place is literally so awesome and I loved it. If you go at peak times (Summer afternoons and Summer evenings) then you can find queues of about a 30 minute wait. It’s worth it, because it’s *that* good! If you want to skip the queues, then go at earlier in the day. They have a few locations around New York, but I visited the East Village location, but I would recommend going to that one as it’s a great part of town. FYI, it’s just a few doors down from Caracas which is an insanely good Venezuela eatery. Go to Caracas for dinner and the Big Gay Ice Cream shop for desert, it will literally be the best evening EVER!