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Hawaiian Shaved Ice tends to be something you seek out at the street or county fair, used to soothe your mouth after a helping of that ubiquitous jerked chicken, or to cool down on a hot day. However, there's a bandwagon rolling through Los Angeles, and many US cities, these days, and it happens to be one on four wheels with a Twitter account. Now roaming the streets of L.A.: The Get Shaved Hawaiian ice truck, with their expansive list of tasty flavors, and their fingers flying on the keyboard to Tweet their next stops.
We encountered the Get Shaved truck parked at the Woodman Avenue Market, and there seemed like no time like the present to treat ourselves. First dilemma: What to order. They have a ton of enticing flavors, but also an incredibly friendly person hanging her head out the truck window ready to help you put together a combo. Some basic questions: Do you like sweet or sour? Ice cream or not? A spray of sweet cream (condensed milk) on top? Small, medium, or large?
What we got: A small (it's pretty generous for the littlest one) with a three-flavor combo: Watermelon, Passionfruit, and Tiger's Blood (Mixed berry with coconut) with a spray of sweet cream. The combo was excellent; the flavors are sweet without being cloying or chemical--Get Shaved makes their own syrups with pure cane sugar. They use block ice, which results in a more refined ice that really holds the flavor and means you don't end up sucking the syrup away in the first few bites and being stuck with lumps of sugary ice water. And, in case you've been too indulgent this summer, an 8 oz serving only has about 60-70 calories, and no fat, sodium, or cholesterol. Hello--that's (practically) healthy. Well, at the very least it's a treat that you can enjoy without guilt. Where's the Get Shaved truck going to be next? Follow them on Twitter to find out. See you there!
