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| - I had to check out Ice Pan's concept of making ice-cream right in front of you so I stopped by during my last visit to Vegas. Ice Pan is located on the 2nd floor promenade at the Harrah's Las Vegas hotel so unless you know about it and come specifically looking for it I doubt that you will ever run into it.
Ordering seems complex but is very straightforward. You start by selecting the base ($5.95) for your ice-cream which could be whole milk, non-fat milk or soy milk, then select the flavor from Strawberry, Mango, Banana, Kiwi, Green Tea, Vanilla, Chocolate, Yogurt, Coffee, Lemon, Pistachio, Mint Chocolate, Red Bean, Watermelon, Pumpkin, or Pomegranate and finally select the toppings of your choice (50c each) from Strawberry, Banana, Kiwi, Mango, chocolate Chip, Blueberry, Walnut, Pineapple, Almond, Granola, Macadamia, Coconut, Marshmallows, Chocolate Syrup, Caramel, Mochi, Lychee, Fruity Pebbles, and\or Raspberry.
I decided to try Red Bean as that is a really difficult ice-cream to get right specially considering that Ice Pan claims it has no artificial coloring, no refined sugars, no extra sodium, and no preservatives. The milk and red beans are basically blended together and then dropped on an ice pan which causes it to instantly freeze. This is then followed by softening the frozen ice-cream by scrapping it up and trashing it around using two metal scrapes. After a minute of repeating this softening process toppings are mixed in and finally the ice-cream is scooped into a cup. I went with mochi toppings as it goes well with red beans which was a good choice as they seemed to pair up perfectly.
Taste wise this is the pinnacle of not-too-sweet, but believe me its good. If Ice Pan can get someone like me who likes sweet ice-cream to appreciate the natural inherent taste of red beans then they are definitely doing something right. Service is excellent. The owner is very friendly and approachable and could easily be a role model for others.
Left completely satisfied so will surely return to try something else the next time I'm in Vegas.
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