During our visit at Emack & Bolio’s in Jewel Changi when it opened in April, there was a perpetual queue in front of the store. While there’s a drop in customers on weekdays now, a line is still seen on weekends. The brand will open its second outlet at Suntec City’s West Wing in November. During our visit, throngs of people were ordering marshmallow-covered cones studded with neon-coloured Fruity Pebbles cereal and other sweet crunchy bits, topped with multiple scoops of ice cream — and were doing so probably without knowing how much it would set them back (see below). Back then, the menu did not show prices, and the digital signboard, which was supposed to be displaying the vital digits, was instead showing scenes of a pair of Korean love birds licking E&B cones. These days, however, prices are on full display at the shop so you can decide exactly how much you wanna treat yourself.

The majority of the crowd here are diehard fans of Korean sitcom A Korean Odyssey (see above still from the show), in which the lead characters were shown seductively slurping these ridiculously massive cones — ’cos one of them owns an E&B shop in Seoul. That said, the American brand already has a presence in China, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia for a few years now. Created in 1975, this is the Bostonian hippie counterpart to Ben & Jerry’s (though to be accurate, they predate B&J by three years). There are over 30 outlets in the States. The founder is bleeding heart music lawyer Robert Rook who was representing rock ‘n rollers like Aerosmith and U2, while working pro bono for the homeless, for gay civil rights, and for anti-war demonstrators. He started out by cranking a commercial ice cream machine at a basement of a rental unit, and his rock star friends would come over to chill, literally.

Photo: Korea Dramaland

Surprisingly, the business isn’t named after Robert’s famous friends, but two homeless dudes who he did pro bono work for — and according to legend, they asked for the ice cream enterprise to be named after them (clearly buay paiseh). And so, Emack & Bolio’s was born.

Sharp-eyed customers would have noticed a good-looking couple helping out at the shop, looking pretty much like they breezed out of a Korean drama despite the ordering frenzy happening around them. The photogenic 30-somethings are husband and wife team Andy Lim and Wang Wanting (above). And because we have such great snooping skills, we can tell you that Wanting has close to 23k followers on her public IG account @wantingw (and for you kaypohs out there, you can stalk Andy on @nd_lim). But don’t take them as yet another “influencer couple” — both of them have day jobs as high flying bankers. They help out Andy’s brother-in-law Vincent, who holds the franchisee rights for Malaysia and Singapore.

Photo: @wantingw, Instagram

One of E&B’s selling points is their wide range of “crazy” flavours created to cater to the tastes of their cool rocker clientelle. The 24 plus flavours available in the Singapore store certainly have funky names. Think “Space Cake” and “Chunk O’Funk”. There is even “Deep Purple Chip”, originally inspired by Glenn Hughes. If you are going “Glenn Who?”, it’s okay, we’re not sure how many of the millennial folk in the queue actually listen to Aerosmith, let alone Deep Purple. Yet even while their rock and roll history is probably completely lost on the Gen Y and Gen Z population, E&B's visual appeal is still strong among a generation who grew up eating for the ’gram.

While the names are funky, the flavours aren’t exactly radical. Space Cake comprises cake batter ice cream studded with shortbread cookie pieces and chunks of Red Velvet, while Chunk O’Funk is a caramel ice cream with chocolate coated pretzels and Oreo chunks. Yup, there’s a lot more flavour options than offered at B&J scoop shops, but it’s pretty much the same everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style of ice cream with lots of crunchy, chewy bits and bobs thrown in. That said, their clientele don’t seem to mind at all, and the most popular flavour that seems perpetually sold out is the rather tame Seriously Chocolate Addiction with chocolate chips and fudge chunks. If you must know, Steven Tyler from Aerosmith likes the Seriously Chocolate Addiction flavour best.

You can have your ice cream in a cup, or a plain sugar waffle cone. But that would be missing the point of coming here. While the Johor Bahru outlets at KSL City Mall and Paradigm Mall also offer chocolate coated cones studded with banana chips and sprinkles, the Singapore outlet focuses on the really photogenic stuff: the marshmallow cones. For the uninitiated, these are sugar cones with their heads encrusted in thick clusters of crunchy stuff all held together with melted marshmallow goo. And it’s such a huge gooey, crunchy mess that from afar, they look like inverted cones of ice cream in the display case. On the day we visited, six varieties — Black and White (Coco Pops and Rice Krispies), Fruity Pebbles, Coco Pops, Froot Loops, Crushed Oreo and Rice Krispies — were available. It’s said that the “flavoured cone” is an original invention of E&B, which can be traced back to 1980.​​​​​​​

The other selling point for E&B ice cream is that they are not made with milk from cows injected with a milk production-inducing hormone called bST. Apart from health risk reasons, the E&B website also reasons that injecting dairy cows with bST forces small dairy farmers out of business. 'Cos small producers who can't afford to inject their cows just can't match the production quantity of the bigger players who can. Instead, Emack’s milk comes from small farms in New England, New Hampshire and Vermont. It’s also mentioned that their ice creams do not contain food dye. But if you’re going to have your scoop with a Fruity Pebble marshmallow cone in radioactive colours, we guess that’s not something you’re too concerned about, though.

We were probably the only people who ordered single scoops during our visit. Everybody else was completely in on the stacking programme and wielding tall towers of about three scoops. But that’s “conservative” — according to Andy, the record number of scoops piled onto a cone was a whopping 10, and was ordered at one of the brand’s Hong Kong outlets. If you’re thinking of doing that, let us do the math for you. Going by the price of $7 for a single scoop, and $4 more for subsequent scoops, you’ll be paying $43 for the ice cream, plus another $3.50 for the marshmallow cone, totalling $46.50. All for that Insta shot.

Photo: Emack and Bolio's Thailand, Facebook

We came for the Seriously Chocolate Addiction, but was told that it was sold out. Boo. Its closest counterpart, another chocolate flavour called Gabba Gabba Gooba, was also sold out. (Singaporeans, why so predictable?) So we tried a Grasshopper Pie, featuring Crème de Menthe (mint-flavoured liqueur) ice cream with chocolate chips and Oreo bits on a Fruity Pebble cereal cone. The ice cream, made in America and flown in, has a nice dense texture similar to that of Ben & Jerry’s. Flavour-wise, it is only very mildly minty and didn’t quite stand up to the pronounced (and artificial) flavours of the Fruity Pebbles. Meanwhile, the cone is decently crunchy and the whipped marshmallow covering it gummy, so it serves its function of keeping the crunchy, colourful cereal firmly stuck to the cone. Fun to eat, but plenty sugary.

This one stars vanilla ice cream studded with Oreo cookie bits and cookie dough on a Black and White Oreo crumb-cloaked marshmallow cone (see bottom scoop). The ice cream boasts a nice chew thanks to the addition of thick cookie dough. However, it is overwhelmingly sweet, especially when eaten with the marshmallow cone.

Emack & Bolio’s unique selling point is really its marshmallow-coated cone, which, while pretty, is tooth-achingly sweet after a coupla bites. Meanwhile, the ice cream is well made but again, more sugary than we’re used to. If you want similar funky flavour mash-ups, it’s probably easier to grab a pint of Ben & Jerry’s at your nearest supermarket than to schlep to Jewel Changi (or the upcoming Suntec City branch) for your fix.

Emack & Bolio’s is at #B2-234 Jewel Changi Airport, 78 Airport Blvd, S819666. Tel: 8858-2450. Open Mon-Thurs and Sun 10am – 10pm, Fri and Sat 10am-12am. https://www.instagram.com/emackandbolios.sg/?hl=en

Photos: Alvin Teo