Aice is a Singaporean ice cream brand that established itself in Indonesia. It’s popular for its low price, which the company credits to the use of local ingredients (apart from imported milk). It popped up rapidly in Metro Manila—and the rest of the country, actually—in the past few years. They even went viral in mid-2019 for their fruit-shaped variants and locally familiar (e.g. sweet corn) flavors; plus the fact their ice cream only ranges from PHP10 to PHP30. You’ve asked for it (and we happily obliged to eat 14 different ice creams): here’s our Aice ice cream ranking.
14. Taro
First off, the taro cone has poor UX. The wrapper is hard to rip off. Plus, it sticks to the cone so much that you end up eating tiny bits of paper. The cone itself is soft, kind of like a sugar or waffle cone that’s been left out to soften (but done intentionally; we’re not mad at it, we just expected a crunchier cone).
The ice cream tastes more like ube than it does taro—yes, there’s a difference—and it gives off musty, flavor extract-y hints. It doesn’t reach the bottom, leaving a good inch of hollow space before the tip of the cone. There’s a chocolate and nut disc as a topping, which some members of the team commented as “[tasting] old” and not necessarily melding cohesively with the taro taste-wise.
13. Pineapple
The pineapple stick is similar in texture as Nestle Twin Popsies. It holds together, and is easy to chew if you’re into that sort of thing. The team describes it as tasting like a slightly watered-down version of Jollibee’s pineapple juice.
12. Chocolate Sundae
The chocolate sundae is more mousse than it is ice cream, which isn’t at all a bad thing. It’s light, fluffy, and is “half (Dairy Queen) Blizzard, half whipped cream” in texture. “If they named it ‘Chocolate Mousse,’ that’d be [more accurate],” says a member of the team. The chocolate in the ice cream has a chemical-y taste, like the usual artificial chocolate. But the chocolate syrup, which is generously swirled into the sundae, is decent. It’s like cheap chocolate syrup, but the good kind.
11. Milk
The iced milk has a great milky, creamy texture that makes it feel substantial; as if you really froze milk into a stick. That said, the flavor is more condensed milk or powdered milk (or the Haw Haw powdered milk candy), and not milk milk. Though it works if you’re a fan of any of the former.
10. Chocolate
The chocolate stick kind of tastes like the chocolate sundae (in the cup), but way better. (Plus extra points because you don’t have to eat it with a spoon.) It’s much creamier, and tastes less artificial. It also has the same nice texture as the other stick variants. Members of the team liken the taste to “a creamier chocolate Twin Popsies,” “a Milo ice cream,” and “the creamy choco of our childhood.”
9. Strawberry Crispy
The strawberry crispy is strawberry ice cream covered in a white chocolate shell. The coating wasn’t bad; it was a bit thin, but we liked that it didn’t at all feel oily. The ice cream had a faint strawberry flavor (maybe they mixed in too much vanilla?), which was obviously fake. But it was “fake in a nostalgic way,” like all the strawberry-flavored food we had as kids.
8. Milk Melon
If you grew up eating those melon milk snacks from the grocery, then you’re gonna love Aice’s milk melon stick because it tastes exactly like that. Although, if you hated those, then this’ll suck for you. (Just don’t get it, geez.) The texture is in the middle of the brand’s frozen sticks and creamy ice cream variants. Though TBH, we wish it were creamier.
7. Torch Coffee
The torch coffee (no photo, because our suki Aice re-seller didn’t have it in stock during the shoot) is basically coffee ice cream covered in a hardened chocolate shell, on a cone. The coffee ice cream is delicious, and tastes like real coffee in the sense that it has a hint of bitterness to it. The cone is similar to that of the taro’s, and the shell is a rich-ish milk chocolate, kind of like the chocolate syrup in the sundae.
