The ice cream with a taste of Asia

ISSAQUAH

Oblivious to the growing line behind her, Aylie Widjaja took her time deciding on a flavor at Far Far's Danish Ice Cream Parlor in Issaquah.

She asked to sample three kinds and was handed plastic tasting spoons, each with a bud of ice cream.

"It's my first time here, so I'm trying everything - I've had the green bean, red bean, and now I'm going for the taro," said the 27-year-old Seattle woman.

Widjaja drove to Issaquah with a friend to visit the store on Front Street North run by Chin and Kheng Ung, owners of the only remaining Far Far's, once a popular Washington franchise.

After tasting the taro, a light-purple confection made with the yamlike vegetable, Widjaja ordered two scoops.

"It's something special - you just can't get this stuff at Baskin- Robbins," she said.

Word of mouth keeps attracting new customers from around Puget Sound to this mom-and-pop shop where fresh milk, fruit and other ingredients are churned into more than 50 flavors.

But the Ungs have scooped a niche for themselves with ice cream targeting Asian-American taste buds. Green tea, ginger, sour plum, mango and sesame are stocked in their freezers alongside bubble-gum, pistachio, chocolate, pumpkin and cookie-dough flavors.

Last year the Ungs introduced lichee and green-bean ice cream at their customers' request. Durian ice cream is also a favorite among a small clientele with an acquired taste for the tropical fruit that smells like old socks.

"It's the stinky one," said Peter Ung, 14, about the ice cream his family will sell only by the quart to shield unwitting customers from the odor.

But for palates accustomed to the taste, there's nothing quite like it. Rose Ngo, for instance, won't order anything else.

Speaking to Kheng Ung in Cantonese, the Bellevue grandmother ordered two pints of peanut-butter-fudge ice cream for her grandsons along with a quart of durian.

"Any kind tastes good, but I only like this kind," said Ngo.

"I like it here. Any time I come, she is very good, very kind and happy," she said about Kheng Ung, a bubbly woman who knows all her regulars - by face and by flavor.

Chin and Kheng Ung knew each other in Cambodia and married after they came to the United States separately in 1979. Except for one of Chin's sons who now lives in Bothell, both of their families in Cambodia died in the "killing fields" of the late 1970s.

Kheng worked in housekeeping at Overlake Hospital Medical Center and Chin as a janitor at the Bellevue Hilton before they bought Far Far's seven years ago. Chin Ung makes all the ice cream in the morning before the shop opens. He also runs an embroidery and silk-screening business.

Their son Peter, who does his nightly homework at one of the wrought-iron tables decorated with a blue-and-white checked cloth, works with his parents on weekends and in the summer because they can't afford to hire employees. The family lives in Redmond but often logs 12-hour days at the ice-cream parlor.

"It's my home away from home," said Kheng Ung. "Wintertime is a really hard time. You don't make a lot of money in this business."

But a sunny weekend, even in mid-February, is enough to entice ice-cream lovers by the minivan-load. As the temperature rises, so does business, she said.

In past summers, tourists from Oregon and California and even a couple of Hong Kong businessmen have ordered quarts of the Ungs' treats ice-packed for air travel.

And every year, first-timers stumble into Far Far's and become hooked on the Ungs' creamy-but-not-too-sweet mixtures. Bonnie Scoggins, a self-described ice-cream connoisseur, and her husband Jim discovered Far Far's seven years ago.

"We're from Yakima," she said, "but we've got our kids in Seattle. Every time we come to visit them, we make a point of stopping here - both coming and going.

"I've eaten ice cream all over the world," she said, "and next to Italian ice cream, I'd say this is the best."