About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Snow Crane at Little Pearl. 921 Pennsylvania Ave., SE.
Chef Takeshi Nishikawa was culinary director of Rose’s Restaurant Group (Rose’s Luxury, Pineapple & Pearls, Little Pearl) before launching his own Japanese-style ice cream brand called Snow Crane a couple years ago. This summer will be a homecoming of sorts. He’ll host a six-week residency at Little Pearl beginning Sunday, June 14, serving a minimalist menu of ice cream and teas. Depending on how it goes, it could become a more permanent fixture.
Nishikawa will offer just two flavors of ice cream, which will rotate weekly. To start, expect to find Snow Crane’s signature: a nutty kinako ice cream (made with roasted soybean flour) dusted with kinako powder and drizzled with Okinawan black sugar syrup. The second initial offering will be crown melon ice cream using prized fruit from Japan’s Shizuoka prefecture. It’s served with sea salt whipped cream and shiso. The luxe ice creams will cost $10-$12 per scoop.
Snow Crane will also serve sparkling mugicha (barley tea, $8) and matcha from Uji, Japan (served hot or iced, $9) as well as a premium single-origin matcha ($16). Nishikawa explains that just as many wines or coffees are blends or different grapes or beans, the same is true for most matcha. So, he wanted to offer something a little different with an option from a single farm.
“Some of these are incredibly unique expressions of a matcha that you’ve never tasted,” he says. “Some are so green, so grassy, yet there’s a subtle sweetness. Some are so umami rich that it’s like, ‘this is weird.'”
Nishikawa is also bucking the trend of fanciful matcha lattes with all kinds of extra flavors added in. He wants the tea to be treated with the same reverence typically reserved for wine or coffee.
“It’s literally just whisked matcha in a six ounce cup, like how it would be traditionally done. And we’re very, very proud of our sourcing,” Nishikawa says. If you want to get a little fanciful, though, you can get the tea and and ice cream combined in a float or affogato.
Snow Crane will operate out of a takeout window with outdoor seating available. It will be be open Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays from 9 AM to 1 PM.
Meanwhile, Snow Crane will continue to vend at the Gateway Farmers’ Market in Mount Rainer, Maryland and sell pints at Rice Market on 14th Street. Nishikawa declined to comment on a Hyattsville location that was previously announced.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
