218 flavors

I remember when as a child I was in complete awe of Baskin and Robbins' 31 flavors of ice cream. I'm talking about the slack-jawed, head-scratching kind of awe. A few years ago we discovered the International Ice Cream Company on Venables St. here in Vancouver, which boasts 218 flavors. YES! That's right, 218--no less!

This is gelato Mecca, definitely not for the republican, conservative, French vanilla loyalists, who aren't looking for excitement in their lives. This place has totally outrageous flavors like garlic, balsamic vinegar, pear and Gorgonzola, rum coke, rice, red rice and coconut, soursop (guyabano), yam, taro, blue cheese, fig, mojito, pomelo, egg nog, chai tea, dragon fruit, and many others as weird and off-the-wall as ice cream flavors get. They give free tastes in tiny teaspoons and believe me, I've tried most of them in little dollops. I wondered if anyone actually ordered and paid for such weird flavors and then I figured they're probably just PR strategies to give customers an unforgettable experience. Part of the pleasure of being there is being confronted with 218 choices; when else does this phenomenon happen? Never, right? We don't always have an active choice in most everything that happens in our lives. For a fleeting moment it gives one a feeling of power and ascendancy over one's immediate destiny--shall it be creme brullee or peanut butter chocolate? The fun of gawking, tasting, and cringing are all part of the packaged experience that Vince Misceo offers the customer. Nobody ever walks out of there without ice cream in hand. Pretty clever...

I ordered chocolate black forest this time around and didn't regret it. It was bursting with tart cherries and sprinkled with dark chocolate shavings, all creamed together in milk chocolate. Delicious!!!


Vince Misceo, an Italian immigrant who came here from Bitritto, Italy 37 years ago, started experimenting with exotic ice cream flavors from his basement. Now he has this renowned joint that is frequented by locals and International celebrities alike. The walls of the ice cream parlor are papered with press releases and photos of Vince with celebrities who have stopped by for a taste of his ice cream.

I met him two years ago because I noticed a container labeled durian ice cream in an obscure corner in one of the many freezers. It was the only one with a lid on, of course, because of that infamously offensive smell. So I ordered a scoop and he was quite taken aback. "You eat this stuff?" he asked. "Sure," I said, "I come from the birth place of that fruit." "Nobody ever orders dooreean," he quipped so he gave me two scoops for free. We spoke for several minutes and he was a very charming gentleman in a Tony Soprano kind of way.

He wasn't in today but his son was there attending to each and every customer. This place is a must visit for anybody dropping by Vancouver.