‘There were some problems only coffee and ice cream could fix’Amal El-Mohtar
Hey guys,It's been a minute since I wrote about restaurants I've been to, so I decided to do a post on that here. I had initially planned to include this in my last post but it would have been one really long post so I decided to write about it separately.
First-off, I don't know if I've raved about this place before but it's been one of my favorite regular places. So guys I'm talking Ice Cream Factory and Yin Yang Express... I had a Saturday morning meeting with friends and we agreed to meet here. Personally, I'm not a big fan of morning meetings on Saturdays, mostly because I'm usually so tired from the week and all I want to do is curl into my sheets for the most part of the morning. However I was completely down with spending my morning at this place because mornings at restaurants are the best - no crowd and more coziness.
These two places share a building and I think they are co-owned or have some kind of partnership. They had two branches initially - one at Victoria Island (which was closed down recently) and the current one at 5, Admiralty way, Lekki. The one at Victoria Island was our favorite chilling spot from way back 2013, such good times were had there, until it shutdown. Now, we just have the Lekki branch which I'm still grateful for.
The Ice Cream Factory is a dessert restaurant that offers luxury ice cream and pastries as the name indicates. It's the downstairs area of the building, it has a really cozy interior set up with comfy sofas and coffee tables, alongside a nice outdoor sitting area that is just perfect for hanging out.
The walls have nice quotes about dessert and ice cream written all over them which I enjoy reading and this one is one of my favorite quotes.
They have so many flavours of ice cream and usually I go for my regular flavor 'Dulce de Leche (Caramel flavour) but this time around I had a mixture of two flavours, the second being 'Caramel Cookie Crumble'...so I had one scoop of each. A scoop goes for #400 which is super affordable. I had my usual muffin too, 'the Ultimate muffin' (sold at #450) which is a caramel muffin with white chocolate chunks inside...talk about food being sinful! They had other muffins and cakes but I usually always go for this, something about 'the devil you know'. My friend Anuli felt that after having that much sugar that early, we all needed to go on a cleanse but as an Oliver Twist I still wanted more.
Anuli and that fro!
We spent some time in the outdoor area, very cozy and relaxing - a day well spent if you ask me.
Onyi
Afterwards, we headed up to Yin Yang Express...yeah, you can tell it's a Chinese restaurant by the name and the chinese letters on the wall. Same great atmosphere over here, cozy and intimate.
They have lots of variety on the menu which is a big plus, gives you so many options to choose from. I ordered the Jasmine Steamed Rice and Green Pepper Beef Sauce, it's your basic sauce with green pepper and that distinct chinese flavor. It tastes really good which is why the Chinese are famous for their rice, they really do it well. This meal cost #1400 and the bottle of coke cost #300, honestly as restaurants go - this is really affordable for a full-on meal and the taste was worth every kobo spent.
Photography by Collxte
Ultimately, it was a really good meal and all things considered, I honestly think both places are an 8.5 out of a 10 - based on their great service, affordability, variety, quality and ambience. I'm always impressed each time I go back cos it's like a new experience every time.
So guys I'm gonna run along now, hope this was right up your alley.
Till the next,
Kisses from Lagos,
Ify*
