Yellow Ice Cream Uncle, Orchard Road – Popular Ice Cream with Rainbow Bread or Wafer Biscuit

The familiar ringing of the bell. The rush down our flat to the ice cream cart. The sight of our ice cream uncle cutting blocks of ice cream.

These mobile ice cream carts move around Singapore or are stationed in certain places, from residential areas to tourist spots like Orchard Road. Growing up, they often appear at my block downstairs. When the uncle rings the bell, residents will hurry down to get their dose of ice cream. Such small bliss is enough to satisfy us for the day.

However, it appears that such islandwide license for these ice cream hawkers will be ending in their generation. The license also cannot be passed on to anyone should the seller no longer be around.

What begins as a means of livelihood for these ice cream hawkers has now been part of our childhood memories and is evolving into a tourist attraction too. There are several ice cream carts along Orchard Road, a busy shopping district. I have noticed many tourists with cameras and phones ready to capture their ice cream journey.

While it is heartening to see something local and traditional being widely appreciated, it is sad to know that one day they won’t be around anymore.

Some more known ones at Orchard Road are the Yellow Ice Cream Uncle and Red Ice Cream Uncle. There are usually long queues when I pass by in the afternoon.

I visited the Yellow Ice Cream Uncle.

The ice cream is priced at a reasonable $1.50 each. It comes with your choice of rainbow bread, wafer biscuit or simply in a cup.

Flavours include the crowd-favourite Raspberry Ripple, Peppermint Choc Chip, Red Bean, Durian and Chocolate.

Menu

You can watch the uncle deftly chops the block of ice cream, wraps a bread around it or sandwiches it between two wafer biscuits, before he slips it into a plastic bag for easy takeaway.

I remembered there used to be no plastic bag. We would hold it in our bare hands and bite into it as we walked home.

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Yellow Ice cream Uncle

Orchard Road, Outside Wisma Atria