Salt & Straw

Peanuts see the world, make new friends, report back to HQ. Roy Choi is one of those people that we just idolize, so naturally we used our most appealingly whiny tones to beg him to make an ice cream with us. Roy finally agreed, but instead of making a Korean taco ice cream, Roy wanted to make something with the Korean-Beijingesque boiled, spiced peanuts he used to love as a kid. He wanted to call it "Papi's Salted Nuts," and he still can. But as it started taking shape, it became more like a spiced fluffernutter. A light tan, creamy, peanutty ice cream base double-swirled with playful spiced fruit and jolly aromatic marshmallow. The ice cream is streaked with a delicious blackberry jelly infused with Thai chilies. Then we spoon in folds of marshmallow fluff whipped with Southeast Asian spices. Chunk in a few nuts, and it's pretty much perfect. Roy Choi takes all the angst and egotistical pomposity out of cooking and, instead, focuses his incredibly inventive cooking brain to create dishes percolating with "don't give a (let's substitute 'fig') deliciousness." Roy started his culinary domination out of his Kogi BBQ Taco Truck in Venice, serving a crazy yum fusion of unique Korean ingredients with taco hand-food feeling. His menu is now the national food of Los Angeles.

Molé. Ice cream. Holy molé! These Mexican wonder sauces are made with so many ingredients, the flavors meld together into unidentifiable, heavenly elixirs of complicated tastiness. We created this ice cream purely to showcase the incredible flavor of Restaurante Guelaguetza's molé rojo, which is made with over fifty different ingredients. The base of this ice cream is made with ancho chilies, cinnamon, and Mexican vanilla. Then we make an egg flan with Restaurante Guelaguetza's spicy red molé. It's so good! Dense and heavy, that first spoonful delivers a cold, creamy rush of spicy joyand does not stop. When it comes to Oaxacan food in the United States, Restaurante Guelaguetza is the absolute best. It's difficult to explain how good the Family Lopez's food is-a perfect blend of Oaxacan tradition with smart, ambitious, chef-driven creativity. That being said, the true stars at La Guelaguetza are their molés. We heartily recommend you hie thineself over there, or to ilovemole.com and try some of these incredible molés.

Spicy? Yes. Meaty? Yes. Tasty as ice cream? Yes yes! Inspired by late summer nights of convivial sausage-grilling, we thought it would only be fair to try to bring the juicy, meaty, caramelized goodness to our other favorite food vehicle that is not a bun. The not-so-secret ingredient in this ice cream is a nutmeg-and-coriander-laced sausage from our friends at Wurstküche. In the ice-cream-making process, these spicy pork sausages are grilled until they caramelize to a squeal-inducing darkness. To top it off, we concoct a honey-mustard caramel sauce to ripple through each scoop. Wurstküche is arguably the busiest restaurant in the country. In addition to being the creator of some of the most incontrovertibly delicious sausages we've ever had, ever.

This flavor is packed with a mind-blowing explosion of salty, homemade cookie dough and malted fudge swirls.

This is made with a Ugandan vanilla bean brought to us by Amadeus Vanilla here in Los Angeles. We love this bean because not only is it organic but Amadeus visits the farms to hand select the beans before bringing back to us.

This is chocolate ice cream at it's simplest and most indulgent. We've teamed up with Portland's Holy Kakow Chocolates to make a base that is straight forward and chocolatey. Our house-baked brownies have marshmallow fluff folded in to keep them extra gooey.