The LD Special at Lickity Drippity is different every time but combines vanilla soft serve with dip, sprinkles, dipped marshmellow and cotton candy wrap. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

NEXT LEVEL ICE CREAM

Signature Dish: Lickity Drippity’s LD Special

May 20, 2022 | 1:23 PM

NANAIMO — It’s soft serve ice cream like you’ve never seen before.

Lickity Drippity’s signature LD Special is a combination of a flavoured waffle cone, filled with vanilla soft serve ice cream, smothered in a flavoured chocolate dip, topped with sprinkles, a waffle biscuit, dipped marshmallow and wrapped in cotton candy.

It’s the brain child of Tej Kaur, her husband and their nephew culminating in over a year’s worth of trial and error to get the final product and overall experience just right.

“We’d seen a lot of scoop ice creams and we wanted to do something different and you can get very creative with soft serve ice cream,” Kaur said. “We decided to have different kinds of dips and it has to be very quick because the dips are very hot.”

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Flavours of dips range from chocolate and strawberry to key lime pie (featured in the video) and orange cream.

The cones are also unique, carrying mild flavours such black vanilla, espresso and mint.

Their nine different flavours of waffle cones, combined with eight variates of dips are used on the ice cream and the marshmallow mean you could visit Lickity Drippity every day and not have the same thing for over 18 months.

Kaur admitted it’s a new concept for Nanaimo and one she has to hold people’s hands through the first time.

“First time when they come visit us, you can tell looking at their faces, they’re so confused. We’ve prepared this for a year now, I know my product so well, I know the flavours so well, so I can tell the customers ‘let me help you’.

Whatever initial confusion over the concept hasn’t affected growth.

Kaur and her family spent over a year researching, taste testing and developing the menu as well as building a custom truck to deliver their tasty treats.

“We wanted the quality of the soft serve to be very creamy. We went all over Canada to try different types of ice cream and every time I’d see an ice cream shop I’d want to go try and see what was different.”

The work was worth it and the response, immediate.

“The second day we were open, we sold out and had to tell our customers we weren’t opening because the stock was all gone so that’s how we learned how much ice cream we need, how much we need to store.”

Simar Gill, Kaur’s nephew, is the man behind the perfect LD Special.

After arriving from India, Gill worked at McDonald’s but didn’t like the corporate restraints on how creative he could be with their ice cream.

He said the variety of flavours is what makes LD so unique.

“If somebody comes to buy an LD Special, they should try different flavours in one ice cream. Some people are like ‘surprise us, we can eat whatever and we want to try everything’, so for them we give them different flavours.”

Lickity Drippity’s menu also features a range of flavoured soft serve, popsicles, sundaes, popcorn and mini-donuts to round out the experience.

They can be found most days at Maffeo Sutton Park and between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily on Fourth St. next to Panago Pizza.

They are also booked to be at the Nanaimo NightOwls home games through their inaugural season at Serauxmen Stadium.

More information on their menu or current location is available on their Facebook page.

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