8. Guava
Guava is one of those fruits that makes magic when paired cream. This 1-2 punch of tropical flavor is a staple of Cuban cuisine, where guava jelly and cream cheese are stuffed together inside flaky pastelitos and, sometimes, empanadas. Azucar, a newly opened but popular shop in Miami’s Little Havana specializing Cuban-inspired ice cream flavors, features a savory guava flavor. But it’s in Jamaica, where the guava scoop was arguably perfected. (A Google search for “guava ice cream” also turns up a pastelito-inspired guava and cream cheese flavor at Morelli’s Ice Cream in Atlanta.) The perfectly pink batch above comes from Taste the Tropics, the Brooklyn institution that’s been serving up Jamaican ice-cream flavors on Nostrand Avenue since 1975.
Pictured: Taste the Tropics (1839 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn; 718-856-0821)