Saturday, August 28, 2010

Mais con Hielo, Halo-Halo, Tito Rad's

I love when corn is used in dessert. I've been dying to try mais con hielo (a Filipino drink/dessert which is exactly what it sounds like: corn with ice) for a while, but when I went to Ihawan and Krystal's a few months ago to search for it for my Corn Around the World post, it wasn't available. I knew that Tito Rad's in Woodside had it, but I haven't been for a while. Until yesterday. After a huge meal at Pio Pio Riko in Sunnyside with Shannon yesterday afternoon, we still wanted a little something sweet. She really wanted an icy Asian drink and I thought we were in the wrong neighborhood until I realized - Tito Rad's! Just a few blocks away, she could get halo-halo and I could finally try...mais con hielo.

Tito Rad's version tastes just like creamed corn. I think it is creamed corn. With ice, evaporated milk, a little sugar, and some whipped cream. The corn was warm, the ice was cold, it was more salty than sweet, and there was a little bit of crunch from the flaky garnish. It was interesting, and I expected it to be sweeter, but I liked it. $3.75.

Nothing not to like about halo-halo. I was more focused on the corn, but I did enjoy all of the delicious bits of jackfruit, red and white beans, young coconut and palm fruit, mixed in with every bite, of ice, milk, and ice cream - the scoop of bright purple ube ice cream that was beneath the surface was my favorite part. Really tasted like sweet, starchy yams. $5.50.

It's always nice when a wish is fulfilled. I dreamed of eating iced sweet corn. I can check that off my list now.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds unusual, but I could see it working. Corn is sweet, at least the varieties used here in the US, boo to lack of variety of corn acceptable to Americans!

    It's kind of like when heterosexual lifemate and I tried the Crave Shack donut burger. People asked, "Was it a sweet donut?" "No fool, it was salty. OF COURSE it was a sweet donut, that makes it a donut, and that's what makes it awesome, with beef and cheese!

    Or my love since I was little, fries and Wendy's Frosties. Weird, yes. But wonderful too!

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  2. Sweet and salty is a good combo. The mais con hielo here though was more salty than sweet. I've yet to try a donut burger!

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  3. You might be able to get corn (for halo-halo) at the Phil-Am Store, across the street from Ihawan. It'll come in a jar, just as all the other halo-halo ingredients do.

    If you really like the purple yam pudding (ube, pronounced "OOH-beh"), try the purple yam smoothie at Red Ribbon on 65th St and Roosevelt. It's awesome!

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  4. Thanks JHHerald. I love ube! I haven't had the smoothie at Red Ribbon yet (although we tried just about everything else!) but I did have the ube smoothie at Jollibee.

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