I don’t know who first paired ice cream with carbo-loaded desserts but they deserve a national holiday. That simple stroke of genius changed the game forever, paving the way for the beauty that is à la mode. Be it pies, brownies, cookies, cupcakes, whatever — sweet carbs go better with a scoop of ice cream.
Earlier this year, a friend informed me of a spot in Hong Kong that followed such a formula with a local favorite, eggettes (gai daan jai). Naturally, finding this place was high priority and some quick Googling led me to Oddies in Wan Chai.
The menu is small — three hefty ice cream cups (one that even comes with a syringe filled with…something) and a couple interesting sweet and savory eggette flavors. But I came for the carb/ice cream combo, the strangely named Night Wolf.
Now, these guys easily could have cut corners here. They would’ve still made a killing if they sold their eggettes with ordinary vanilla or chocolate ice cream. But instead, they chose a different path, one of superfluous innovation and creativity, and the result is a gloriously assembled hodgepodge of decadence.
Oddie’s eggettes are amazing on their own — warm, fluffy, baked to order, and just the right amount of crisp — but they climb to a whole new stratosphere when paired with a bunch of sexy friends. There’s the caramelized banana ice cream, the dark chocolate gelato, passion fruit panna cotta, brownie chips, chocolate chips, the ghost of your childhood sweet tooth, the dying spirits of diets everywhere, and probably more delicious goodness I’m likely forgetting. There’s so much shit going on here it’s incredible and the result is AMAZING — a whirling dervish of flavors, textures, and pure, unadulterated joy.
There are a lot of people in this world who bemoan the excessive use of ingredients. But I was never one of them. Those mother fuckers don’t know how to live. If I could, I’d take the Night Wolf and sprinkle Cookie Crisp on top, drizzle on strawberry sauce, and stick in a few funnel cake fries. The more the merrier.
Oddies
G/F, 45 Gough Street
Central, Hong Kong
