Miann Ube Ice Cream (Ponsonby Central, Auckland, New Zealand)

We have been to Miann before but that was quite a while back, we were impressed by what they had on offer during that time and it holds true until today, certainly it is one of the best dessert bars in Auckland, if not New Zealand. All the times we had visited Miann was at their Fort Street branch, we never knew that they had opened a Ponsonby Branch, only discovering it when we dined in Olas Arepas and saw this place beside it. During that time, we never intended to have some dessert, but we remembered we saw somewhere that Miann started selling their own version of Ube Ice Cream, so we tried it.

Today we will be focusing only on one item, we all know how amazing their desserts are but how about their rendition of the Filipino classic? Ube ice cream, the vibrant purple ice cream made with ube (purple yam), its earthy, its nutty with slight hints of vanilla, it is one of the best seller flavours back home. Usually when we crave one, we just make ube ice cream at home but when we are lazy luckily recently we saw a lot of Filipino and some Asian Grocers sell them now, made by small Filipino business here in New Zealand, most of them are OK but nothing still beats the ube ice cream we make at home.

Now for the Miann version, well for most Filipinos it is not your usual ube ice cream that we grew up with it, I am not telling it in a bad way but in many ways it was good. So, what is the difference? Well first, it is not as vibrant purple if you notice, second it is not as sweet, Filipino ice creams are quite sweet but this one was just right, it’s in the border of sweet and no sugar at all, because of this the ube flavour is elevated as the sweetener is not masking its real taste, so the result is quite nutty and with rough chunks of ube (from what I can tell), it gives you that feeling that there is more ube in this than the ones we had in the Philippines. There are also macapuno bits (again from what I can tell). So, to sum it all up, it is a mixture of smooth ice cream, chunky bits, and a bit of a grainy texture, you can feel ingredients are used are of excellent quality.

We honestly loved it, it felt weird at first bite, or rather lick but as you continue, you start thinking that this is the better way of doing it, it was really nice but I have one but, it was pricey at $8.00 for a scoop and $13.00 for 2, you can honestly buy two tubs of ice cream at the supermarket for that price, so is it worth it? Well, I will leave it up to you to decide.
Miann Ponsonby

Miann
Address: 136 Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby, Auckland 1011, New Zealand
Phone: 021 204 1100
Website: https://miannchocolatefactory.com/pages/miann-ponsonby