Icing Castle finds summer sweet spot

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This article was published 26/07/2019 (2522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beat the heat with a bingsu.

For those unfamiliar with the popular Korean dessert, bingsu is a shaved-ice treat with sweet toppings that can be found at the recently opened Icing Castle.

Located in Waterford Green Common in northwest Winnipeg, the Icing Castle aims to satisfy sweet-tooth cravings with a Korean-Filipino twist.

Local resident, and co-owner of the dessert café, Eumi De Jesus, said she thought the area lacked a sweet spot. As a graduate of Red River College’s culinary arts program, De Jesus decided to partner with her aunt, Amelia Co-Ping, and fulfil the area’s need for a local dessert shop.

After six months of planning, designing and creating, the dessert café opened its doors earlier this month to customers eager to try bingsu.

“(Bingsu) was really popular in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver, so we are trying to bring it here in Winnipeg. There’s a couple of places that sell it, but most in the south end of the city, so now we are trying to bring it to the north end,” De Jesus said.

So far, De Jesus says the most popular flavours of bingsu are salted caramel tiramisu and halo-halo, a fusion of Filipino and Korean flavours. To make bingsu, the business imported a special machine from Korea that flash-freezes milk and shaves it, creating the fluffy textured dessert.

Since the family-operated café opened, De Jesus and Co-Ping say, business has been booming.

“The first day that we opened, we didn’t even know that it was going to be such a big hit. We closed at 8 p.m. and by 7:30 p.m., we ran out of some of our flavours,” Co-Ping said.

“When we opened, we thought maybe there would just be one or two people trickling in and nobody would even know about us, but I don’t know where they all came from,” De Jesus said.

At a table near a large window — perfect for natural lighting — Lovely Pascual sat with her cousins taking photos on their cellphones of their frozen desserts.

“The location means so much because, like, all of the cute dessert places that I’ve been to, they’re, like, really far,” Pascual said. “For it to be within walking distance, that I can get together with my friends, even in the summer, is really special.”

De Jesus says many customers have found out about the dessert café through social media, which they often use to announce secret menu items.

“We have a secret menu because we are always bringing up new items and we have a really strong following on Instagram, and we love our Instagram followers because they are the reason we are so successful right now,” De Jesus said.

While the Icing Castle is in the process of purchasing a third shaved-ice machine exclusively for dairy-free liquids, De Jesus says, they are also hoping to expand the menu, which also includes Asian-flavoured ice cream, pastries and coffee.

“We are always looking for that new trend, so right now, if I ever get a spare moment, I want to follow whatever is popular in the world,” De Jesus said.

nadya.pankiw@freepress.mb.ca