Liquid Nitrogen Dessert. mmmmmmmmmmm.....

Liquid nitrogen definitely doesn’t come to mind when thinking of ways to make a delicious dessert. Nonetheless, ice cream can indeed be made using the -320 liquid that is incredibly dangerous and unpredictable if not dealt with properly. Dangerous dessert, now that sounds like a cheesy horror film. Pure Magic Ice Cream is this newcomer dessert joint that best resembles good competition of your usual Dairy Queens and Twistee Treats. It does offer some lunch items and drinks, but you are going there mainly for their desserts. Less than a year old, Pure Magic Ice Cream is a nifty little ice cream joint that isn’t too deep in Downtown Kissimmee.


The infamous Orange Blossom Trail transforms into Main Street once you hit Downtown Kissimmee. Taking that street straight-shot, you’ll find Pure Magic Ice Cream on the right side about a mile or two into the historic downtown area. The building itself isn’t very big, but has a nice massive backyard-like area full of games for smaller children to play, as well as chalk to draw on the walls. On the inside, it’s open-ended, with no air conditioning but plenty of fans to fight off the heat. In the corner of the building is an assortment of massive tanks full of nitrogen. Pure Magic is a mere nine months old and seems to have already developed a cult audience in the Kissimmee area.



You have five dollars? You can have a vanilla-cheesecake-marshmallow-reeses-walnut-oreo ice cream. With just five dollars at hand, you can create any crazy combination ice cream, granted they have the ingredients. Excluding the special toppings that they sometimes have, there are at least 30 potential “toss-ins” when creating your ice cream. And they range from your usual ice cream flavors to fruit flavors to candy bars to yes, even cheesecake. What they do is grab a bowl, set some cream and milk, and add whatever toppings you request. Then afterwards they bombard the cream with a hefty dosage of liquid nitrogen, immediately freezing the product. After a bit of mashing around, your ice cream is ready.



My first combination was mint chocolate chip and reeses peanut butter cups. Josh (My cameraman)’s first combination was their signature honey cinnamon. My ice cream turned out very well, but extremely crunchy. I didn’t taste much of the mint or original vanilla, but definitely got a nice kick of Reeses and the chocolate chips. Josh’s honey cinnamon was not crunchy, but extremely strong. The honey immediately attacks the taste buds and lingers, removing any possible evidence of vanilla. It doesn’t necessarily have the creamy texture of ice cream, but has the flavor. Nonetheless, the honey cinnamon was still a bit too strong for both of us. We were not worthy of its richness (bows head in shame).

The second day however was much more successful. Josh went for the coffee ice cream. Very simple, but very tasty. The coffee was rich and is not much of a battle to eat. My combination even impressed the person making it (not boasting or anything, I swear), as I asked for a crazy hybrid of cheesecake, chocolate, and marshmallow. It was a lot simpler than my first experience, but much richer in flavor, and lacked all the crunchiness I experienced with the other ice cream. It was essentially the liquid nitrogen equivalent of Dairy Queen’s cheesecake Blizzard---except it was made the way I wanted it. The portion is also massive, unlike your usual ice cream locations around Central Florida. At 5 dollars, it’s quite a special deal. And you get a nice presentation to boot, as they make it right in front of you.


Bottom Line: While I am not the biggest fan of Downtown Kissimmee, Pure Magic Ice Cream is definitely a location worth visiting. Their method of making ice cream might scare away some people, but once you try it, you’ll enjoy it. All I recommend is that you fray away from using too many “crunchy” toppings; otherwise, it will be a battle against the teeth to enjoy. After a practice run or two, you’ll master the ability to create some delicious ice cream at a nice cheap price, and in a nice location full of smiles and good spirits. I recommend my combination, and recommend their coffee ice cream. But, once you grab that Lincoln, you hold the key to your ice cream destiny with thousands of potential ways to create your dessert.




Pure Magic Ice Cream
520 N Main St
Kissimmee, FL 34744
(407) 201-2509

P.S. The videoblog episode about this place makes its debut late August.

Breaktime

I am temporarily taking a break, resuming blog work in this specific blog in August. The filming begins in August and ends in September, with the new episodes airing in October.

See you then.

Weak Name, Strong Arepas

Sometimes, you just want to go to a nice location for some good snacks. Nothing too fulfilling, but something different, something small but very tasty. Usually ice cream joints succeed the most in this type of eatery, with the likes of Twistee Treat, Baskin Robbins, and Rita’s. But, close to The Loop is a very small place called Orlando Snack Café. From the outside, it looks like a small location to grab a quick snack, maybe a sandwich or a pastry. I am surprised that there aren’t more of these small eateries next to middle or high schools. In the Dominican Republic, there are dozens of carts that run rapid when the school hours are over to rake in some cash from hungry students. But in Central Florida, I personally have not seen much restaurant activity outside of schools----which now would be extremely profitable given the crap that is fed to students nowadays. So, I gave Orlando Snack Café a shot.

Well, apparently Orlando Snack Café is nothing like its name. Orlando Snack Café is actually a Venezuelan restaurant that has been around for a couple of years that serves up a wide variety of breakfast and lunch items----with a few snacks here and there. The foods range from hot dogs to pastas to sandwiches to salads to even steak and cheeseburgers. The food is a heavy mix of Venezuelan and American. All it takes is a name change, and it would have a much better fanbase, considering that there are a lot of Hispanics in the area, and a lot of successful Hispanic eateries.


After some thinking, I decided to go with a cheese empanada and a chicken and cheese arepa. I did this because I am judging similar small eateries in the area from Columbia and Venezuela (Senezia and Fortuna Bakery Café, which will have a competition in Season 2 of my videoblog). To add to that, I also order a banana milkshake. The meal cost around 12 bucks after taxes, a bit pricy in my tastes. The empanada wasn’t too bad, but the arepa was 5 bucks since I asked for two items instead of one—a bit high in my opinion. After some waiting I first get the banana milkshake. It was unusually warm, but its not unusual in some countries to serve these drinks warmer than you’d expect from a milkshake. After a cup of ice, the drink was very good, not too thick, not too milky.


The empanada arrives next. It was very, hot, fresh right out of the oven. It was very big, and a second one of these would have been filling enough. It was very good, not too greasy. However, the inside wasn’t full of cheese; it was half-cheese, half-air. It sounds like not much of a deal, but when across the way you can find empanadas that is full to the brim (Senezia) with flavor (and filling), it was a minor buzzkill. Nonetheless, it was very good. So much analyzing over an empanada, eh?


The arepa arrives, and this food is what separates the good places from the bad places. Senezia’s arepas are extremely greasy, extremely messy, and everytime you order it, it’s a race against time to eat it before the greasy bread falls apart and obliterates the entire meal. In other words, Senezia’s arepas would be better if it weren’t a tough battle to devour the thing. In the case of Orlando Snack Café, the arepa was phenomenal. There was twice as much shredded chicken as cheese, and the bread portion wasn’t struggling to hang on. While you can get so much more food with 5 bucks in many spots (and even this spot), it was nonetheless very filling and satisfying. In terms of Venezuela Arepas, this place is King of the Hunters Creek Mountain.


Bottom Line: The name is almost a total contradiction to how the place really is, but Orlando Snack Café is a decent joint with high prices but wonderful service and high-caliber food. The range is quite extensive, and it would require multiple visits to see just how good their American items are. In the meantime, their Venezuelan cuisine isn’t half-bad, with their arepas being some of the better ones in the Orlando area. I recommend this place if you have a craving for Venezuela food, but this isn’t a spot that would be a total travesty to miss. I will return here, but only for their arepas, nothing more.

P.S. The other difference is with the two other small local Hispanic eateries, they have a massive bakery section as well as their lunch section. In here, their dessert consists of selling ice cream from different well-known brands.



Orlando Snack Cafe
3708 Town Center Blvd.
Orlando, Florida 32837