SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — It's not what you would expect to find in your ice cream — the soft pink flesh of a lobster claw poking out of the frosty treat.
A Summerside, P.E.I., restaurant has created lobster ice cream, and its owner insists people are enjoying it.
"It seems to be going well," Alex Clark, owner of OpenEats, said Thursday. "The tourists certainly love lobster and I imagine they leave here saying, 'Those crazy Islanders — they put lobster in everything!'"
The idea came after Clark and his chef wanted to develop a recipe for a local festival promoting lobsters. Clark says they had settled on another dish, but changed gears at the last minute because "we didn't feel we were unique enough or different enough," he said.
"We want to make sure you're experiencing something different — so why not put lobster in ice cream, right?"
They came up with lobster ice cream one afternoon and made it the next day, admitting that he didn't know how the savoury-sweet dish would turn out.
When he tasted it for the first time, the 27-year-old Summerside native says he was struck by the prominence of the lobster flavour.
He said his chef poaches it in molasses butter to draw out the flavour of the lobster and then serves it on a homemade shortbread biscuit with strawberries, toffee and crumbled potato chips on top.
"It was overwhelming how much you could taste the lobster," he said. "It has the full lobster meat in it as well. We made some yesterday and I saw a small claw sticking out the side of it!"
The dessert costs about $11 a serving. The restaurant opened last December and specializes in fresh, locally sourced food and seats only about 40 people.
"We've had some very clean plates," he said, adding that a customer from Toronto debated whether he should have the dish after lunch the other day.
"Then he ate it and I came back and the dish was wiped clean and he was nodding his head with a big smile."
When asked what's next, the first-time restaurant owner said with a laugh, "Oyster ice cream? No, that probably wouldn't work."
