Ditch your summer diet – it’s ice cream season. This month, Roy Boys is celebrating LGBTQ pride with an ice cream flavor served all throughout June.
Roy Boys, located at 2108 Eighth St. NW, is a fried chicken and oyster restaurant with a bar open to customers sitting both inside and outside. The restaurant is furnished with black paneled tables, bright neon-green signs and lights dangling over the bar during nighttime hours.
The restaurant opened in Shaw earlier this year and will debut a second location in Navy Yard next month. Before the next Roy Boys opens, the eatery is hosting pop-up shops in Navy Yard’s Smorgasbord every Saturday, said Melvin Portillo, the restaurant’s general manager.
Roy Boys serves several salads and sandwiches with fried or grilled chicken incorporated into nearly every dish. While I wasn’t in the mood for a chicken dinner, my friend ordered the “Little Bird” ($16) with waffle fries and offered me a bite. The chicken dish emulated a southern classic – fried to a crisp and cooked well enough to peel off the bone.
You can also order a range of oyster dishes, like barbecued oysters ($13) or “Roy Boy Po Boys” ($16), which consists of a choice of fried shrimp or oysters and lettuce, remoulade, tomato and pickles.
I caught a whiff of some of the savory meals delivered to tables near my spot at the bar, but I couldn’t help but skim to the bottom of the menu for its signature dessert option: ice cream tacos.
Throughout June, Roy Boys is whipping up “Rainbow Crunch” ice cream tacos to honor Pride Month. The three tacos served are dyed in all colors of the rainbow and stuffed with vanilla ice cream and frosting.
[gwh_image id=”1091215″ credit=”Ari Golub | Photographer” align=”none” size=”embedded-img”]Chef Will Sullivan creates every ice cream taco flavor. He is rolling out about 10 new flavors over the next several weeks. [/gwh_image]
I’m not one for fruit-flavored ice cream, but the toppings on the tacos made the cut. The ice cream was coated in rainbow-colored Fruit Loops and Trix cereal. To finish off the colorful display, rainbow sprinkles covered what was left of the exposed vanilla ice cream.
The tacos cost $7 on most days of the week, but you can head in on “Taco Tuesday” for a discounted $3.50 treat.
If you can’t head to Roy Boys during June to try the rainbow tacos, don’t worry. Will Sullivan, the chef who creates each taco, said he is rolling out about 10 new flavors over the next several weeks.
For now, you can try flavors like the cheesecake cobbler, which is topped with pieces of cheesecake and doused in strawberry and blueberry compote, or the peanut butter truffle tacos. Every taco comes with vanilla ice cream, but the toppings add a unique spin to each flavor.
Whether you’re looking for a meal in Navy Yard later this summer or hanging out in Shaw, Roy Boys will fill you up from its signature oyster and chicken meals to its sweet stuffed tacos.
