There’s a new truck in town! A gelato truck! VIA Gelato makes delicious gelato from local ingredients. All of it is made with local milk and eggs, and most of the flavoring ingredients are locally sourced, too. Shake learned about them a while ago, before they were up and running with the truck. And, small world that this is, it turned out that my good friend is a friend of the owner!

So, on the first day VIA had their truck operating, we went to check it out and have dessert before lunch. We weren’t the only ones. There was pretty limited publicity, primarily just notifying VIA’s Friends & Family network, but the word traveled pretty fast! Look at these hot and hungry-for-gelato folks!

So many flavors! How do you pick just one?! Plus, you can get extra goodies! Li hing mui, or handmade cones (instead of the usual cup).

You can get a regular cone, or a chocolate filled one. I think they’re worth more than a quarter, especially the chocolate-filled!

This is owner and chief gelato maker, Melissa Bow.

You can follow her on Twitter (@VIAgelato) to find out where the truck will be. For now, the usual hangouts are at Punchbowl/King (by Kawaiahao Church) from 11am – 1pm and Ward (by Sports Authority) from 6-10pm.

Choices, choices…I settled on the Brown Butter Vanilla. I always feel like it’s the mark of real talent when the “just plain vanilla” kicks ass; if that’s good, you know the rest has to be great, too. Shake couldn’t decide, so he got a half-half: Brown Butter Vanilla and Cafe Latte. We both got the chocolate-filled cones, which have a “plug” of chocolate at the bottom, just like Drumstick cones. Mmmmm…

My Brown Butter Vanilla did not disappoint! It was fan-freakin’-tastic! Our friend, Shake’s co-worker, came with us to check out the truck. She got a Green Tea Haupia cup.

I’m a total green tea freak, but the fact that this gelato was green tea with haupia made me reconsider. I like my green tea really intense. Basically, I’d be happy licking up some matcha powder. When I tried some of our friend’s cup, I knew I’d made the right choice. It was lovely, but I felt I got more haupia than green tea. However, if you read Melissa’s blog, where she details the background behind many of her flavors, you’ll see that she’s the opposite of me—not a fan of a super intense green tea taste. So her intent was to lighten up the tea-ness, and she did a great job with that!

There are no photos of Shake’s cone because he got his first and attacked it right away. It pretty much looked the same as mine anyway. I snuck a taste of his Cafe Latte…wonderful stuff!

Melissa really pays a lot of attention to detail. The cones are all handmade—she has an army of family and friends helping her make them—and they have a beautiful pattern embossed into them.

Here’s another example of the tiny details: Melissa has cute aphorisms written on the front of her counters (there’s one on each side of the truck).

This one says, “All that you are seeking is also seeking you. If you sit still it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time.” (The one on the other side says, “Everyone is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its entire life believing it’s stupid.”) Love it!

It’s summer—sunny days, beautiful nights. You need some gelato. Go get some from VIA!