Eli’s Ark — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I originally heard of Eli's Ark from Allison and Ho/ung at a Macy's event I was vendoring for Asian-American Pacific Islander month. They generously offered my coworker and me macarons (rose and black sesame) from their store and shared a business card.

Hearing that my friends loved macarons, we came in on a chillier Saturday evening to meet up for birthday treats. The space was open and clean, with ample seating in modern furniture, an Instagrammable wall, and a chalkboard menu.

Before my friends arrived, Trisha did a great job helping us try out flavors, and told us which pieces of edible design would come with which animals (the chocolate-covered mini Oreos helped me decide on the bear). It wasn't all fluff, however--the gelatos use creative and flavorful ingredients and have a smooth texture; my favorites were the horchata and peach jasmine tea. The offerings also included vegan sorbets.

Friendly and helpful staff, a comfortable space, cute gelato designs, and well-crafted macarons make this Wicker Park shop...

Eli’s Ark can take all my money for all I care😍 this gotta be the most unique and beautiful ice cream I’ve ever seen! It’s not just for looks, it also taste good! My fav was the Vietnamese coffee “Phin flan” flavor. Besides Phin flan, they also have a lot of other cool flavors like Tiramisu, matcha etc, other fruity flavors. Oh, and if you want animal shapes for your ice cream, they have at least 8 different animal choices for you to choose too! If you want vegan, gluten free, or even dairy free, then come here, they have all those options here. The staffs are certainly very nice and friendly. The space isn’t too big, but it is very cosy cute. I’ve never had so much waiting for ice cream before. And when I got my ice cream cone, I couldn’t stop smiling because it was so damn cute and pretty. Feeling like a kid again.

To see more of my food adventures: visit my instagram...

This place is simple and cute. Their ice cream selection isn't that big, and their flavors are pretty basic. However, they do make cute animal characters on their ice cream. They are pretty stingy with their ice cream too. The scoops are pretty small, and the sugar cone is completely hollow when you finish your scoops on top. Other places give much bigger scoops, so when you reach the cone part, some of the ice cream would have sunken into it already. The lonely and plain sugar cone was too boring to eat alone, so I didn't even finish it. It was over $6 with tax for one scoop of ice cream, so it's pretty expensive. They also offer some pastries there, but I didn't try them. The experience was okay overall, and the servers were friendly, but I don't think I will be back. There's just a lot better ice cream...