A Very Spooky Halloween at N2 Extreme Gelato

N2 storefront

Ever since I first read Jenius’s and many more food bloggers’ posts on N2 Extreme Gelato, I couldn’t wait to visit! N2 takes gelato to the extreme by making all their ice-cream in front of you in Kitchen-Aid mixers using liquid nitrogen, which if you ask me is pretty cool (pun intended… Yes, I make lame dad-style jokes occasionally. Sorry about that.)

I first learned ice-cream could be made this way with liquid nitrogen from Heston Blumenthal’s cooking videos and was lucky enough to sample some at his restaurant in London at Dinner by Heston. The theory is, since the ice-cream freezes mega-quickly due to the super low temp of the nitrogen, the ice crystals formed in the ice cream custard are smaller, therefore making it intensely creamy. I was very impressed that N2 serves all its ice cream this way.

So I was happily surprised to accidentally pass N2 after lunch with a friend in the city. Jackpot!

N2 workbench
The staff had dressed up their shop ‘Halloween style’ with some awesome (fake, I hope — haha) blood dripping down the glass, mutilated barbie dolls, bloody looking brains and a severed hand amongst the beakers. The creepy decorations fit in perfectly with the staff dressed in lab coats and protective eye gear, churning ice-cream with puffy billowing vapours emerging from their mixers — the modern day witch’s cauldron!

Mutilated Barbie doll
Another mutilated Barbie doll
An N2 ice-creamist at work
In fact, the decorations were so creepy, one of the staff members cautioned me and my friend bringing my 4 year old god-daughter in as it ‘wasn’t appropriate for kids’, but it wasn’t too long before Talei was pointing and laughing at the brains and severed hand. She’s a tough kid.

Brains and severed hand in cling-wrap
Beaker of blood
Creepy-looking beaker full of blood.

Pentagram with doll
They had five new flavours to celebrate Halloween: choc grave (chocolate ice-cream with crushed Oreos – the dirt – mixed in, and a jelly worm to top it off), pumpkin & treacle pie, Grinch (avocado and mint), black apple sorbet and snow white beetroot & milk (I’m guessing this would look like blood on snow?) I was sharing with Talei so we picked the choc grave which was the most kid-friendly.

Choc Grave flavour ice-cream
Choc Grave ice-cream (chocolate ice-cream with Oreo crumbs topped with a jelly snake) $6.00 for one fairly massive serving.

N2 ice-creamist making more ice-cream
N2 ice-creamist serving ice-cream
It was very entertaining to watch the staff churn the ice-cream using liquid nitrogen!

Mix-ins stored in beakers
Mix-ins for the ice-cream.

Absolutely loved the chocolate creamy ice-cream with the crunchy chocolatey crumbs folded in. Definitely planning my next visit to try the regular flavours (I’m looking at you, salted caramel!) The single serving is pretty big so it’s suitable to share between two and really isn’t too expensive at $6 a serve. It was definitely a huge novelty watching the ice-cream churn in seconds with puffs of icy clouds. In terms of novelty ice-cream, this is my new Cold Rock!

N2 would be the perfect spot to impress a date or to visit with a bunch of friends. I loved all the cute Halloween decorations and the customised flavours. Can’t wait to see what else they come up with!

Talei enjoying ice-cream
I call this the ‘Talei seal of approval’.

N2 Extreme Gelato

Hope you all had a great start to a week. It’s okay, Monday is over. And Eat Drink Blog 2012 is soooooo close!!!

xoxoxo
Christine

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