9 must-try ice creams in Asia to beat the summer heat

Dondurma is the frozen dessert equivalent of a practical joke. It stretches, resists melting and has a chewy texture that makes first-timers wonder if someone slipped a few marshmallows into the mix.

The secret lies in salep, a flour made from wild orchid tubers, and mastic, a resin that gives the ice cream its signature elasticity. Originating in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaraş, dondurma is so thick that it is often sliced with a knife rather than scooped. Street vendors famously use long paddles to twirl, flip and tease customers before finally handing over the cone.

Its cousin in the Arab world is booza (pay attention later), particularly in places like Damascus and Beirut, where vendors pound the mixture by hand with wooden mallets. Today, chefs are pushing the format beyond pistachio and vanilla, experimenting with combinations like burnt honey, tahini, orange blossom and even kunafa-inspired versions with crisp pastry shards.

Taiwan’s most famous frozen dessert may look almost like a burrito, but it is really an ice cream wrap with serious textural ambition. The peanut ice cream roll—often called “ice cream burrito” by tourists—typically starts with a thin wheat crepe. On top of that goes a generous shaving of peanut brittle, two or three scoops of taro or pineapple ice cream and a handful of fresh cilantro before everything gets wrapped up like a spring roll.

The combination sounds deeply suspicious until you taste it. Sweet ice cream. Salty, nutty peanut shards. Fresh herbs. Soft wrapper. Crunchy filling. It somehow works.

The dessert traces back to Taiwan’s night market culture, where vendors have long leaned into unusual combinations of texture and temperature. Some versions now use sesame ice cream, matcha, black sugar or fruit sorbets, while upscale dessert shops have experimented with fillings like hojicha, mango or oolong tea ice cream.

Taiwan is also known for fruit-forward shaved frozen treats and milk-based popsicles, but the peanut ice cream roll remains one of the island’s most singular contributions because it feels almost engineered to surprise you.

Rolled ice cream, known in Thailand as i-tim-pad, is less about old-world tradition and more about performance. Vendors pour a liquid cream base onto an ice-cold metal plate, chop and mix in ingredients at lightning speed, then scrape the frozen mixture into delicate spirals.

Thailand’s version helped turn rolled ice cream into an Instagram-era phenomenon, but the appeal remains rooted in customisation. You can have everything from mango sticky rice flavours to Thai milk tea, pandan coconut, banana roti or black sesame with condensed milk.

It may be one of the newer must-try ice creams in Asia, but it has already become one of the region’s most recognisable dessert exports. Vietnam even has its own version called kem cuon.

Sorbetes—better known locally as dirty ice cream—is the frozen dessert equivalent of hearing an ice cream bell down the street and sprinting outside with loose change in hand.

Unlike American-style ice cream, traditional sorbetes is often made with coconut milk or carabao milk, which gives it a richer and slightly funkier profile. The classic flavours remain stubbornly iconic: ube, queso, mango, chocolate and sometimes the wonderfully baffling “ube-cheese”. It is typically served in cones, cups or squashed into soft bread buns.

Modern Filipino chefs are now reinventing sorbetes with flavours that feel distinctly local but also gourmet: smoked tablea, calamansi pie, muscovado, sili chocolate, roasted coconut and even versions inspired by kakanin. Some restaurants are turning it into polished gelato-style scoops, but the best versions still carry that faint sense of childhood nostalgia and the sound of a cart rattling down the street.

Mochi ice cream is perhaps the most portable form of ice cream ever invented: a tiny orb of frozen filling wrapped in chewy rice dough. It evolved from daifuku, the traditional Japanese sweet stuffed with red bean paste, but the frozen version became popular through Japanese-American innovation in the late 20th century.

The contrast is the entire appeal. Cold, creamy ice cream inside. Soft, stretchy mochi outside. Traditional flavours include green tea, black sesame, red bean, plum wine and vanilla, but today’s mochi ice cream world has gone delightfully rogue with variations like yuzu cheesecake, hojicha caramel, pandan coconut and strawberry matcha.

It is also one of the few must-try ice creams in Asia that has fully crossed over into global supermarket culture. In many ways, mochi ice cream has become the gateway dessert for people discovering Asian sweets beyond bubble tea.

See more: A look back at the food trends that took over Asia, from bubble tea to dirty bread

If rolled ice cream is Thailand’s flashy modern export, i-tim kati is its old-school classic. The name means coconut milk ice cream, and it is traditionally made with coconut cream rather than dairy, giving it a lighter, cleaner, almost tropical tone.

It is usually served street-side in cups, buns or even hollowed-out coconut shells, then piled with toppings that can feel more like a snack mix than a sundae bar. Think roasted peanuts, sticky rice, palm seeds, sweet corn, red beans, jackfruit, pandan jelly or toasted mung beans.

That mix of cold coconut ice cream with chewy, crunchy and salty toppings is what makes it so satisfying. It is also a reflection of how Thai desserts often balance sweetness with texture and a bit of savoury contrast.

Modern versions now show up in Bangkok cafés with additions like espresso, salted coconut caramel, mango or brûléed banana. However, the street version still feels unbeatable: a scoop of coconut ice cream melting into warm sticky rice while you stand in the heat trying not to finish it too quickly.

With variations in Vietnam and the Philippines, coconut ice cream is indeed one of the must-try ice creams in Asia.  

Booza is what happens when ice cream gets a little bit elastic. Originating in the Levant—particularly in Syria and Lebanon—it is made not by churning, but by pounding and stretching milk, cream, sugar, mastic and sahlab, a flour made from orchid root. The result is dense, chewy and almost marshmallow-like, with a texture that pulls apart in ribbons rather than melting instantly down your hand. It is part taffy, part ice cream and a full spectacle.

The dessert dates back at least to the 15th century, and many food historians believe it shares roots with Turkish dondurma. But Syria is often considered booza’s spiritual home, especially because of Bakdash, the legendary Damascus ice cream shop that has been making booza since the late 19th century. The shop became famous for pounding its ice cream by hand with giant wooden mallets and coating it in crushed pistachios.

Traditional booza is often flavoured with rose water, orange blossom or qashta, a rich cream taste, then rolled or stretched before serving. The mastic gives it a slightly piney, almost herbal note, while the sahlab is what gives it that famously chewy texture. 

Today, chefs and modern dessert shops are taking booza far beyond pistachio and rose. Varieties like cardamom, salted caramel, dark chocolate, matcha, miso, saffron and even Sichuan white chocolate are no longer novelties. In cities like Brooklyn and Berkeley, speciality shops are helping introduce booza to a new audience that has suddenly realised stretchy ice cream is far more fun than regular ice cream.

While gelato may be Italian in name, Asia has embraced it with the sort of maximalist enthusiasm that produces flavours no Roman nonna could have predicted. Across cities like Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore and Manila, gelaterias are swapping out hazelnut and stracciatella for profiles like black sesame, miso caramel, jasmine tea, durian, pandan, sake kasu, salted egg yolk and toasted rice.

Gelato’s lower fat content makes it particularly good at carrying strong flavours, which is why ingredients like matcha, roasted sesame and tropical fruits work so well. It is undoubtedly why Asia’s most creative chefs are currently taking the region’s pantry—ube, coconut jam, fermented rice, tea, herbs, tropical fruit—and translating it into something cold enough to survive a brutal summer day.

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