Alex Prada likes to play around in the kitchen, and he loves for customers to sample his creations.
Prada co-owns Caffe Prada at 390 N. Broad St. with his partner, Ken Hart.
Prada sells plenty of standard gelato, which is a low-fat Italian style of ice cream, and sorbetto, Italian fruit sorbet. Regular flavors include chocolate, pistachio and lemon. But on any given day, he is likely to have a new flavor in the display case, too.
Prada has deemed one of his more unusual experiments a success. He is even in the process of registering a trademark for the name, TeaLato.
The choice of name for TeaLato is misleading. It's not actually a gelato because it doesn't have milk (or any dairy). It's closer to a sorbetto, but does not contain fruit juice or puree.
Instead, it is made with sweet tea.
Prada, an Argentinean of Italian descent, has a transplant's perspective on what people might like to eat in this Southern city.
Maybe it was just a matter of time before he came up with something like TeaLato.
Not as simple as it sounds
It wasn't easy, though. "If you just make sweet tea and freeze it, it becomes a block of ice," Prada said.
In other words, it was far from the smooth, fine crystalline texture of a sorbetto.
Prada didn't give up, though. He nixed the idea of trying to improve the idea with corn syrup, saying he can't stand the stuff.
Then, he thought about how the pulp and pectin in traditional sorbettos act to smooth the texture. He tried adding pectin to his sweet-tea mixture. That didn't work, either.
Finally, he came up with dextrose powder. This is a natural form of glucose that makes sorbetto soft. At last, he had what he wanted.
Prada said that his sweet-tea TeaLato is selling well.
I thought it was pretty good. But it did seem like a novelty compared with some of Prada's other flavors that I enjoyed more, including lemon and mango.
Prada also has had success with a pink-lemonade sorbetto.
"I'm trying to appeal to people with flavors they know, like comfort food," he said.
Another popular flavor is Prada's "Euro yogurt" gelato. It may sound like frozen yogurt, but it is smoother and creamier, and it has a pronounced yogurt tang.
Not every experiment is a success, though, even when Prada likes the result.
A green tea and mint gelato, a collaboration with Chad Morris (who sells tea through www.chadschai.com), didn't catch on. "I loved it. But it was just my friends and Chad's who ate it," Prada said.
And he said that people were mystified by a tomato and basil sorbet. He holds promise for another new creation, a custard-based gelato with biscotti and chocolate. He puts the chocolate and biscotti on top, and the biscotti keeps its crunchy texture, which contrasts wonderfully with the creamy gelato.
He has made avocado gelato that's "to die for," though he hasn't offered it for sale because he doesn't think people will buy it.
He also thinks that asparagus gelato "would be wonderful."
He has been perfecting his recipe for Bellini sorbetto, which should be ready for sale soon. It's a take on an aperitif made with peach nectar and Champagne, though Prada's gelato uses Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine.
Caffe Prada is a new business, and it has a lot of competition among other ice-cream shops in town.
Trying new and unusual flavors of sorbetto and gelato could be considered a way to try to stand out in the crowd.
But, Prada said, "I like to experiment. That's the fun part."
He laughed. "You know, a beer gelato would be great."
■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com
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