Sweet Tooth now serving up rolled ice cream in Trussville
By Shaun Szkolnik
For The Tribune
TRUSSVILLE – A new business in Trussville is bringing a world-wide phenomenon to town. The business is Sweet Tooth. The phenomenon is rolled ice cream.
“Rolled ice cream is the most popular thing in ice cream,” Sweet Tooth Owner Sebastian Lin said. “It originated in Thailand and was originally called Thai fried ice cream. It was one of those things that a street vendor would have a little machine and you could just get on the corner of the street, and it has just kind of caught on around the world.”
One of the great things about rolled ice cream is that it is so much fun to watch being made.
“It is really popular, it is trendy, it is pretty, it is made for Instagram and social media and that kind of thing,” Lin said. “It is something that tastes a little different and is instantly made, so you kind of get the wow factor of seeing it being made in front of you and being rolled up. It is really cool to look at. And of course, it is ice cream. Everybody loves ice cream.”
The process of making the rolled ice cream starts with a grill that has been chilled between 20 to 25 degrees below zero. An ice cream base, currently being offered in vanilla, strawberry or chocolate, is placed upon the grill and begins the process of being rapidly cooled. Within 30 seconds the base has been frozen into ice cream.
The next bit of food alchemy comes with an introduction of ingredients into the base. The ingredients are chopped into fine bits and placed in the ice cream. This gives the ice cream a new flavor. Sweet Tooth offers many different ingredients and hundreds of combinations that can be mixed and matched into the ice cream.
“I personally like fruits in mine,” Lin said. “So I kind of like a strawberry base with mango and fresh fruits added. As far as the most popular, Oreo is the most popular ingredient; and we can put that in the chocolate or vanilla base. Half the people that come in here want Oreo as an ingredient. It really gives that cookies-n-cream type of flavor.”
Once the ingredients have been added to the ice cream, it is flattened into a thin square layer across the grill. A spatula is then used to scrape the layer into several rolls that are placed into a container where toppings can be added. Sweet Tooth has a large selection of toppings including sauces, whip cream, candies, crackers, wafers, cookies, fresh fruit and even Pocky sticks. From there, nothing remains but to grab a spoon and dig in.
“We are still in our soft opening phase,” Lin said. “We’ve been about three or four weeks right now. We still haven’t quite decorated everything. We’re still kind of experimenting with our menu and things like that.”
Sweet Tooth plans on having a grand opening near the end of the month or in the very first part of December. There are also plans for new locations in the future, but it was never in any doubt that the first one would be in Trussville.
“Every time I drove through this little area, it is always busy and always booming and new places are popping up,” Lin said. “I’ve always just liked this area in general. So when I decided to do something, the first thing that popped up was Trussville. This was the first area that popped into my mind.”
Sweet Tooth is located at 1483 Gadsden Highway Suite 104, near Plato’s Closet. They are open seven days a week; from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday to Thursday and from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
