How Thai Ice Cream Took Over Los Angeles

Eater

17 hours ago

My favorite ice cream flavor growing up was not rocky road or cookies and cream. Instead, it was the standard ice cream flavor in Thailand, equivalent to vanilla in the United States: Coconut. Although scoops of coconut ice cream were hard to come by throughout my childhood (outside of Baskin-Robbins' Nutty Coconut flavor, which is still a nostalgic favorite), that's not the case anymore in Los Angeles. In fact, in recent years, Thai ice cream has taken off at scoop shops like Kanomwaan, Coco's Kanom Thai, and pop-up-turned-standalone-shop Moom Maam.
Ice cream has long been a tabula rasa to introduce Americans to new ingredients and international flavors. Los Angeles has an abundance of these successful experiments: There's Wanderlust, the Filipino-owned ice cream brand making flavors inspired both by heritage and travel, like a pandan tres leches ribboned with condensed milk and hojicha candy bar with kinako-based caramel; Iranian and Egyptian-inspired scoops at Kinrose Creamery, whose rosebud-adorned ice creams in flavors like honeyed baklava have become extremely popular; and guanabana (soursop) and maracuya (passion fruit) paletas at Mateo's Ice Cream. And at last, more Thai ice cream makers are throwing their own hats in the ring, celebrating the fruits and flavors of Thailand.
'Coconut is one of the most important ingredients in Thai desserts, which is why we decided to call the shop Coco's,' says Kontee Sridaranop, one of the operational managers of Coco's in Thai Town, which opened last year. Nidarat Thaiprasongsak, who manages Coco's alongside Sridaranop, chimes in: 'It's a flavor that's easy to eat. It's not too sweet, it's nuanced, and it pairs well with the toppings we offer.' Many Thai people love fruity, seedy, and crunchy toppings on their ice cream for textural contrast — Coco's leans into this Thai tradition by offering three toppings with each scoop. Options include toddy palm seeds in syrup, cubes of grass jelly, sweetened egg floss called foi thong, shredded jackfruit, coconut, roasted peanuts, and sticky rice. You can also get the ice cream scooped into a white bread bun, the Thai version of an ice cream sandwich.
And although coconut is a signature flavor, the team at Coco's is particularly proud of all their fruit ice creams, which include whole and real fruit. There's a passion fruit flavor, roselle flavor, and custard apple, as well as riffs on coconut like coconut taro and durian and coconut. Single scoops start at $5 and include three toppings (mango and durian cost and additional $2). 'We just saw Taiwanese dessert shops and Korean bingsu places opening, and we thought, why don't we do that?' Sridaranop says. 'I'm biased, but I think Thai sweets and our ice cream are some of the best.'
Down the block at Kanomwaan, which opened in 2023, coconut ice cream is also on the menu. 'We always tell first timers to try our coconut milk or pandan milk flavor,' says Champ Jansaeng, the co-founder of Kanomwaan and the next-door Ruen Pair restaurant. 'They're very mild and sweet flavors.'
But Jansaeng doesn't adhere to only simple flavors. He's experimented with a pork floss and chile crisp flavor, introduced a tom yum sorbet, and launched a pumpkin curry flavor last fall. For the summer, his menu is a celebration of Thai fruits with a mango sorbet, jackfruit gelato, and durian and sticky rice flavor. The ice cream he is most proud of — one that remains a staple on the menu — is the kanom tien kai kem flavor, or Thai dessert candle-smoked ice cream with salted egg yolk. 'It's a new thing for a lot of people, but a lot of Thai bakery items tend to have this signature candle scent,' Jansaeng explains. The trick is striking a balance between the perfumey and floral scent of the Thai culinary candle as well as ensuring the salted egg yolks didn't add too much salt. 'Gelato making is a mad science project,' Jansaeng says, laughing.
For Saran 'Darwin' Wai, the owner of Moom Maam (which serves at Smorgasburg every Sunday since the summer 2023 and has a retail location in Torrance that opened in September 2024), ice cream actually does scratch his itch as a scientist. 'I have a background in genetics engineering and a degree in molecular biology,' Wai explains. 'I discovered the whole world of the science of ice cream, and it's so fun. You can manipulate every single thing in ice cream, and when you taste that first bite, it made me want to start my own ice cream brand.'
In fact, his degree from Kasetsart University in Bangkok is key in one of Wai's signature flavors, the riceberry horchata. Riceberry is a variety of rice from Thailand known for its purple hue and antioxidants, and was invented at Kasetsart. 'So it's a flavor inspired by a Mexican drink, using Thai rice, turned into an Italian gelato, and made by a Thai guy,' Wai says. 'I feel like that's a pretty good representation of LA. Los Angeles is a playground to create and build bridges to new cuisines.'
Aside from the horchata flavor, Wai churns a Thai pesto gelato made with sweet Thai basil, a durian and mezcal flavor, and a Thai tea flavor — one of the first flavors he ever developed. But in the world of Thai ice cream, all roads lead back to coconut.
'Coconut is the flavor that got me started, and coconut ice cream is my favorite thing,' Wai says. 'But ice cream is a blank canvas. Once you know how to draw it, you can draw anything.' See More: