10Below ice cream shop

10Below rolled ice cream

The city of New York is filled with overpriced foods. And I am not talking only about fancy restaurants here. This post is more targeted towards different desserts that became famous on Instagram, and therefore their prices skyrocketed.

When I was visiting New York last autumn, I promised myself that I will only try three of these overpriced foods. And one of them was rolled ice cream at an ice cream shop, called 10Below. And of course I had to try it. You know, for science.

What is the hype about?

People, especially influencers on Instagram, seem to love innovative and funky food items. And even the most basic foods (such as ice cream, in this case) can get transformed into an internet sensation with a little innovation in food presentation. 10Below ice cream shop is a great example. After all, it is just ice cream, but it is not just ice cream at the same time.

Oh, and people seem to love the free stickers that you can get at 10Below ice cream shop. I saw some people in front of me literally grabbing a handful of stickers. Well, they are nothing special - they have a whale with an ice cream on them, which is a symbol of this ice cream shop, but they can be your souvenir, and a reminder that you once spent a fortune on rolled ice cream.

You will also find a sticker on your cup with rolled ice cream. The picture on the sticker? A whale with ice cream on the top of its head. Almost like a narwhal. Narwhale!

Where is this place? Why 10Below?

Ten below ice cream shop is situated in New York’s Chinatown district, more precisely on 10 Mott street. If you enter Chinatown at the part that is the farthest from Little Italy, Ten below ice cream shop will be situated on your right hand side. And, I am warning you, the place is hidden in plain sight! But luckily, you can learn from my mistakes and just read this post, which will tell you exactly where to get your Instagrammable rolled ice cream dose.

This is the street where 10Below ice cream shop is situated. Can you find it?

I had no idea what to look for, so I walked past the 10Below ice cream shop multiple times. I even used the GPS on my phone. At some point, it showed that I am standing right in front of the place, but was still unable to see it.

And this was when I realized that the place is actually situated in a basement - like setting: you have to go down the stairs to get to the ice cream shop. And once I realized that, the name of the ice cream shop immediately made sense. Ten below means ten feet below the road. Or whatever landmark.

If you reach this sign, it means you completely missed the Ten below ice cream shop - you arrived to Little Italy. I am not saying Little Italy is not nice. It is actually a pretty amazing area, however, you will not find rolled ice cream there. Time to walk back to Chinatown!

What can you get there?

Well, the speciality of this ice cream shop is rolled ice cream, and this is pretty much the only thing that you can get there. In different flavours, of course. To be honest, they have around thirty different flavours, which is impressive. And since I love anything related to Oreo cookies (except for mint Oreos, eewwwww), I decided to try Oreo flavoured rolled ice cream.

I was pretty surprised to see that the basic ice cream flavour is always vanilla, and they will just add toppings to it for flavour. The ice cream rolling takes place on a warm metal plate, where a (seemingly very skilled) person will first crumble your desired topping in the middle of that warm metal plate.

In my case, this was one Oreo cookie. Then, a scoop of ice cream is added, mixed together, and then they start the ice cream rolling. It actually looks super cool, and they make five or six ice cream rolls that they eventually put in a cup. Then, you move on to the toppings station, where you tell the server which toppings you would like.

Good news is that you can pick three toppings free of charge. I picked blackberries, blueberries and the Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I have to say that the combination tasted awesome, and eating just plain rolled ice cream would not be nearly as good.

Looks pretty tasty to me!

If you are lucky enough and they did not run out of their daily supply yet, you can get rolled ice cream in a waffle taco. When I visited 10Below ice cream shop, it was close to dinner time, and they were unfortunately out of waffle tacos. Oh well. Maybe next time I visit New York city, I will go to 10Below ice cream shop again, but this time earlier in the day, so I can try how rolled ice cream in a waffle taco tastes like.

By the way, this ice cream shop is on the small side, and there is always a lot of people inside, and most of them will try to elbow their way in front of you just so they can record or live stream their rolled ice cream being made. Super annoying. And sad, because why not enjoy the moment and look at things with your own eyes, not through camera lenses?

How much does it cost?

Before visiting the 10Below ice cream shop, I never thought I will ever spend ten dollars on ice cream. Yes, you read that right. Ten dollars for the fairly small portion that you see on the picture. But, on the other hand, since this is New York, and I wanted to try something new, Instagrammable and cool, I should not be complaining too much. After all, I knew it was not going to be cheap.

If you decide to have rolled ice cream in a waffle taco, the price will be twelve dollars. And that equals twelve scoops of ice cream in my home country. If I lived in New York, I would be broke.

A few words for the end…

Rolled ice cream looks pretty cool. But, what a surprise (I hope you realized I am being sarcastic), rolled ice cream tastes just like regular ice cream. So the joy at having rolled ice cream at 10Below is in watching your ice cream being rolled, meaning the food presentation is almost better than the actual food you are eating. And even if you are not completely satisfied with the rolled ice cream, you at least get some cute free stickers.