Marash Authentic Turkish Ice Cream

The Turkish ice cream place is closed and was removed from Wholesome Choice on 01/​04/​2016

Closed!
Marash was a good 3+ stars when it first opened and then it all started to go downhill. There used to be a friendly guy dressed in Turkish garb that would serve your ice cream and perform the tricks. Typically, the guy would assemble ice cream cones and feign giving them to unsuspecting customers, only to pull back at the last minute leaving the customer feeling foolish yet entertained.
Somewhere along the line, he stopped serving the ice cream and someone else took over. Come on, man! I basically was ok with paying to be entertained but then they regressed into a generic ice cream shop. And then service went to hell. They weren’t very attentive or friendly during the final month they were open.
Good riddance, Marash.

Marash Turkish Ice Cream is located in Wholesome Choice Market where the hot food areas is at. They typically have about 8 choices to choose from — pistachio always looking like the #1 choice. Therefore, I had to try it.
I was completely stunned by how «stretchy» this ice cream, but in a good way. The texture and flavors were amazing with the little bits of ground pistachio. It had the right amount of sweetness and consistency. Another great thing is the ice cream doesn’t melt as fast as typical ice cream!
The small portion size is perfect and ran only about $ 2.30 — great size for a sampling. Definitely ice cream that is unlike any other and worth trying.
I will be back to try the other flavors.

I’m a little confused and not sure if this is the right place. My receipt has an address for Nazar Ice Cream in Huntington Beach and I was super excited about that because I live in HB but, an internet search only produced this place in Irvine, I’m hoping they moved.
Yesterday a friend and I were at the Sheraton Pomona Fairplex hotel for a meeting and at the end of the meeting we were given tickets to the LA Fair which was happening at that time. We were hungry and the hotel restaurant was closed so we decided to use our tickets to find some fair food. We ended up at a lonely little Turkish cart in a quiet corner and it turned out to be the best thing.
First of all, the guys working there were all so friendly and charming, we felt catered to. Next, the food was delicious! I got the veggie plate with salad, falafels, dolmas, hummus, tahini and tzatziki. My friend got the doner plate. Both were fantastic.
We decided to go back and try the Turkish Ice Cream because I’m always up for something new especially if it’s sweet. While ordering our ice cream another customer highly recommended that we try their baklava, she kept raving about it. My attitude was, «yeah, I’ve had baklava before, it’s yummy.» She insisted, «NO! You MUST try this one!» So, along with the coffee and chocolate ice creams we ordered two pieces of baklava.
I’ll start with the ice cream. YUM! My question before having some was, «What’s so special about Turkish Ice Cream?» Well, it’s gooey and stretchy and chewy-​like-​caramel, kinda magical. While we were eating I looked it up on my phone and it turns out that what makes Turkish Ice Cream so amazing is that it’s made with flour from the root of an orchid and sap from a shrub related to pistachios. If you ever get a chance to try it, don’t pass that up!
The Baklava
Heaven in a bite. HEAVEN IN A BITE, people!!! I love baklava and, hands down, this was the best I’ve ever tasted! It was so good we went back and bought more to take home to our families.
I’m excited to learn that, at least at one time, this place had a home in Huntington Beach and I’m hoping they’re still in Orange County because I would definitely take my friends and introduce them to these wonderful treats.

Went in. Lady comes up its closed for good she says shrugs and walks off.
So theres that.

The second I heard that I could get my hands on Turkish ice cream in Irvine, I HAD to try it.
There are four simple flavors to choose from: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and pistachio. The flavors aren’t anything out of the ordinary, but that’s not what Turkish ice cream is about anyway — you go for the TEXTURE.
A cross between taffy and ice cream, Turkish ice cream tends to be sticky and charmingly chewy. The flavors were, of course, pretty good, but if you’re like me and have a thing for texture, then you’re going to love this ice cream.
Even if you don’t end up liking it, it’s still something new to try.
Oh, and a tip — make sure to get a cone. I hear they do tricks when you get the ice cream in a cone instead of a cup. (Watch this video —
)

I didn’t go to the actual store, but saw them at the OC Night Market. I thought the guy scooping the ice cream was going to shape it into a rose, but he was actually doing fun tricks. It was entertaining to watch other patrons screaming and wondering when they will actually get to take their ice cream. My friend got his in a cup, so nothing happened LOL. We decided to come back so that I can be amused. The ice cream is very creamy and doesn’t melt very fast. I want to try their other flavors since they only had chocolate and vanilla at the market.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Marash ice-​cream in Irvine. I gave a try. Sales person was very friendly. Ice-​cream tasted as close to original taste as it can. Price is very reasonable. I tried pistachios and chocolate. Both was very good. Will definitely try again.

If you like ice cream, it’s impossible to beat Turkish ice cream.

I’m giving this ice cream a 3.7 stars. Mostly because of service though.
The ice cream itself was really good but I had nothing to compare it with. I got pistachio ice cream which is my favorite. The portion size is pretty good (the medium is really big). And I love how they add the nuts on the top! It was kind of on the sweeter side but overall, would have it again.
The only thing that brought my rating to a 3.7÷5 is the service. I wanted to use my Unilocal coupon and I’m not sure if the guy scooping the ice cream understood what it was exactly about. I asked him what size I could get and he said one medium cup and one small cone. But I was taking it to go in the car alone so I asked him to give it to me in the cup instead but he didn’t. But he also didn’t speak English as well so maybe he misunderstood me.
I would probably have the ice cream again though.

When the ice cream man does the show the kids touch the second cone he uses and then he puts the cone back to be reused later. He pretends to not understand English so he does not have to redeem your coupon.

Honestly disregard the negative comments below. This isn’t a boutique ice cream shop where you come for the experience. It’s a lil shop situated in the «food“section of a large grocery store, it’s part of the bakery.
****food****
Texture is definitely starchy (gooey) in terms, this will be a hit or miss thing for some. I am definitely a fan of the starchiness. My girlfriend wasn’t too big on the texture.
We got pistachio and chocolate.
Pistachio, definitely has the same flavors as the rite aids rendition but not as synthetic in flavor, more natural in other words. Had lots of bits and pieces of pistachio in the ice cream itself.
Chocolate, the flavor was really close to that of a chocolate pudding. Id give this flavor a ⁴⁄₅ stars. It’s not the «chocolate» flavor you anticipate on.
***experience***
It’s an ice cream shop at the end of the day, nothing spectacular or special besides the mere fact that it’s a Turkish ice cream. I came at a very busy time of the day in the afternoon, there were a lot of shoppers so we didn’t get any show or anything. I didn’t expect one anyway.
I’d highly recommend this place for those that want a starchy/​gooey/​sticky ice cream in texture. I will definitely come back.

Very nice experience being teased by the ice cream maker and the owner, I mean in the good way :) the ice cream is very chewy, but maybe I’ve eaten too much of American ice cream, I found their ice cream not very flavorful. If they put more flavor into it then it would be great.

Here’s the best Turkish ice cream I have ever tested around CA. They have good price and excellent service with unbelievable taste, I really recommend you to try it at least once.

I tried to like it. I gave you guys a chance, but I’m kinda turned off ice cream for the time being. There were a couple of things that went wrong with the experience here. For starters nobody was at the counter helping Van D. and I out when we were ready to order. We waited probably a good 5 minutes before some lady on the other side asked did we want ice cream. Then we waited another minute for the owner guy to come out and take our order. First off, he was not pleasant. Maybe he was having a bad day, I don’t know… nor did I care. Please pretend that you like our money.
I remember specifically asking for my chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream in a cone. So I see him scooping to it in a cup nonchantly and I was like dude what are you doing, I asked for a cone. Boop, cone on top… and he handed it to me. LOL!!! I’m not gonna lie that was funny, I was amused for 3 seconds. Van D. asked for pistachio and was left with the same flavors as me in a cone. So somehow you managed to mess up two orders and my gawd your menu really isn’t even that difficult…4 FLAVORS BRUH.
Whatevers, I thought… at least it will taste good right? Wrong. It was extremely gooey but maybe that’s how Turkish ice cream is suppose to taste like? We just weren’t fans. A couple of bites and that was it. Unpleasant customer service added with ice cream of strange gooey texture was all we could endure.
PS its located inside the whole foods

Wow. I never foresaw the day to come when an ice cream spot could bring me such displeasure… I mean HOW CAN YOU PISS ME OFF WITH ICE CREAM?
Well for starters… Truong T. and I were ignored for a good 5++; minutes until the lady in the bakery section next to this ice cream place called for someone to come assist us.
Moments later GRUMPY guy… not the friendly guy in the other Unilocaler’s pictures who does happy tricks that everyone raves about… This guy had the most unpleasant expression on his face and it was beyond clear that he didn’t give a flying rat’s ass about customer service…
As a matter of fact, he didn’t even care enough to give us what we ordered. Truong T. asked for a Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry CONE and this guy scooped it into a cup. When we tried to point out we wanted it in a cone, he literally stuck a cone on top of the ice cream that was in the cup. That was so not the point –_​-​’ Ughh… And given that there are only a limited 4 flavors available… I asked for the PISTACHIO, chocolate and strawberry in a cone. I actually got my cone… BUT… he gave me a vanilla, strawberry and chocolate in a cone… I WAS SO ANNOYED!
I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this place… But this «ice cream» was so gross. It was slimy in texture and so distasteful. Never did we know how anything chocolate could ever be so gross. It was definitely not worth the calories. We debated if the Pistachio flavor could have saved our sentiments towards this place, but too bad we weren’t given the opportunity to try it.
Thanks, but no thanks Unilocal for the «$ 3.99 for two ice cream» check-​in offer. I wouldn’t come back here even if someone paid me to…
Rite Aid is walking distance away if you want good ice cream! Or in our case we ventured off to Class 302 for a redeeming dessert experience.

**Taking off 1 star. I noticed of the nine current 5-​star reviews, all of them are suspicious. Almost all have given 5 stars to some combination of DonerG, Istanbul Grill, and The Coffee Tale. Not cool.**
Marash is hidden in the corner of Wholesome Choice, on the other side of the pastry display. Go left when you enter and walk pass all the checkout lanes. Ironically, I shop at Wholesome Choice often but didn’t notice this stand until I saw it on Unilocal.Is this how dependent I’ve become?!
Anyway…today’s flavors were pistachio, strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla. I tried a sample of the pistachio and strawberry. Decided to go with a small scoop of the pistachio. I didn’t see any toppings offered. The server was not dressed up and didn’t perform any tricks a la street vendors in Turkey. Maybe that’s only during certain hours.
The scoop I got was leveled and covered with a lid, rather than being rounded over the top. I thought it was a little strange that he assumed I wanted it to go.
The actual ice cream was pretty good. Turkish ice cream is stretchy, firm, and has a smooth «chewy» texture. Flavors are mild and not as sweet as American ice cream. I did like that the pistachio flavor had actual pistachio bits in it.
It’s nice that there is a local place to get Turkish ice cream, but mediocre service makes this experience just average for me.
A small cone/​cup is $ 2.99. Regular cup is $ 3.99. They are currently doing a promo: check in on Unilocal to get two cups or cones for $ 3.99
Ingredients according to cup label: Fresh milk, Sugar, Natural Turkish Icecream Powder, Guargum.
I was intrigued about the label also being in traditional Chinese. Checked online and the brand has a couple locations in Taiwan.

The ice cream is actually pretty decent but for the price I wouldn’t try it again. It’s $ 2.99 for a cone/​$ 3.99 for a cup. It has a different kind of consistency than American ice cream. Kind of like gum? You’ll see what I mean if you try it. Honestly, it was worth a try but given the location/​venue I’d rather just get a tub of Dreyer’s ice cream on sale for $ 2.99.

This is a small vendor inside a grocery store. Its inside Wholesome Choice, on the left near the front.
There were 5 flavors to choose from, and we chose pistacio and strawberry. both were pretty bland, and certainly not with 3 – 4 dollars (cone and cup price).
In Istanbul, street vendors do this whole trick/​show when serving customers and thats the gimmick and nostalic appeal. Ill give the guy that and a tip for coming alive when he clearly had a long day by the time we showed up.
i give it 1 star for attitude (dude was cool) and one for the show. i give it another for not being heavily sweet like many American ice creams. minus one star for flavor and one star for the ice (water) bits that for some reason there was too much of.

i didn’t know what makes the turkish ice cream special. It was just 3 dollars so i decided to give a try. it is more sticky, kind of harder (that you can bite), and moooore delicious. moreover its been a funny experience, because the seller has played some tricks on me before serving the ice cream, it was so funny standing with an empty corn in my hand after all. friendly employees, reasonable price. rather than going to vegas to see copperfield, stop by wholesome to see the tricks lolll