It's a Good Thing I don't Live Nearby, I'd have a "Chin Chin" for sure!

Before we left on our trip, I downloaded a few apps for the iPad.  I had every intention of using them, but felt that it was better if I didn't take the iPad out with me for safety reasons.  I don't technically own the iPad (it belongs to the college) and if I lost it, I'd feel HORRIBLE.  

But!

One of the apps I downloaded was for the quarterly publication, Time Out.  This app gave you a quick peek at restaurants, festivals, hotels, things to do, and so on.  The current publication was for the summer and inside it talked about ice-cream places worth visiting.

One of those places mentioned?

Yes!  That's right.
Ice cream made with liquid nitrogen.
Ya'll.  Ya'll.  Ya'll.

I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how freakin' fantastic this place was.  

It is tucked away a bit, but it is in the Camden Market--a 7 day a week flea market, that is quite popular on Saturday's.  We stopped by on a Wednesday, not busy at all and well worth the trip inside.

The directions are pretty simple:

• Pick your flavor (I had the vanilla, the Big Guy had the very rich chocolate)
• Pick a topping (I had caramel, the Big Guy had caramelized pretzels)

They have weekly specials, too! (if you see the pic above, it have a "french toast" flavor.  That was their weekly special.  If you "like" them on Facebook, you can see all the cool flavors they come up with!)

But the coolest part was watching them make it in front of you.  It is a husband and wife team who own the shop.  Ahrash, the husband, was trained as a pastry chef.  His wife, who is from New York, helped him come up with this idea for opening an ice cream place.  The rest is history!

They make the ice-cream in front of you, first mixing the base...

and then?

The super cool science part....the liquid nitrogen....

It is collected in a metal coffee caraffe and is BOILING.  How funky is that?  Something so cold is BOILING like hot water!

In it goes into the ice-cream base....

Isn't that wild?!?

Like a spooky Halloween science experiment!

It is mixed some more until Ahrash scoops it out for you.

It looks like a lot of ice-cream, but really, it's about a cup.

Besides, we're on vacation!  Serving sizes are null-and-void on vacation!

We then got our mix-ins and wala!  Finished product!

Which I snarfed down in approximately 90 seconds.

We had so much fun and it was worth the jaunt up to Camden to visit!  Here's a video that the Big Guy took while in the shop!

Up next....the British Museum and Harry Potter!