Although quaint, this closet sized St. Henri Malaysian ice-cream bar is so small that it's easy to miss. That being said, the ice-cream experience there was well worth me foolishly traipsing up and down Notre Dame Street with my daughter and mother, holding my google map enabled iPhone aloft and shouting after them "no! We passed it!" and "oh wait! We passed it again!".
Once we located the place we patiently waited while the customer ahead of us was served. We couldn't help but notice that it felt like an exceptionally long wait, but, there is a good reason for that. Pandan ice-cream hand mixes all its flavors on the spot and "flash freezes" them on a cold plate while you wait so your ice-cream is very fresh and can be adjusted to suit your tastes; a little sweeter here, a little crunchier there or even non dairy! Pretty much everything can be adapted BUT that takes time.
While we where waiting, we got a good look at the place. As I mentioned previously, it is a closet. It has a service counter and a couple stools upon which to perch but for an ice-cream counter, you really don't need much more.
Their menu is very limited, consisting of 5-7 flavors that consist of various ingredients blended together to make for some very distinctive offerings, several of which where unfortunately sold out from the previous weekends sales. I chose a strawberry shortcake flavor that had bits of shortbread cookie blended in, my mother chose a Malaysian specialty who's name escapes me now, but it was green, delicately flavored (a bit reminiscent of green tea ice-cream) and seemingly, what they use to flavor the ice-cream is a popular Malaysian breakfast spread for toast, and my daughter had a triple malted chocolate concoction with cookie bits in it which she wolfed down before I even got to ask her for a taste!
It took significant time to make each of these treats, including the techniques of freezing the cream into a sheet, then scraping it off into beautiful curls which where delicately placed one by one in the cup.
I was surprised to discover that this was their third year in operation. The decor and equipment suggested a new operation. Ingredients where scooped out of ziplock bags and squirted out of bottles into little plastic scoops which where dumped into and blended in little plastic yogurt style containers. It felt a bit messy and un-pro. More like what you'd have in your own kitchen trying to pull together a Sunday rather than an ice cream parlor which did these professionally all day. I would have expected at least glass jars or those containers bulk shops use for dry goods and liquids in bottles that have measuring spouts like many bars do. A couple small changes like that would probably improve their speed and professionalism!
Over all, the woman who served us was very nice and friendly, the ice-cream was delicious, and I wouldn't mind visiting again, just not if there was a lineup!