The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory • 1977

When Philip Seid opened this Bayard Street parlor in the late 1970s, he brought flavors like lychee, red bean, and black sesame to a neighborhood—and a city—that had never tasted them in ice cream form. Now run by his daughter Christina, who has expanded the family operation to Flushing and the Lower East Side, the shop still churns out adventurous scoops like durian and ginger alongside chocolate and vanilla. Lines snake out the door on summer weekends, proof that New York still craves what Seid pioneered nearly five decades ago.