After having my first shaved ice and fruit dessert/treat last Saturday, I realized that not many people may have experienced this wonderful treat. A large plastic bowl of cubed ice is put into a machine which turns it into finely shaved ice, mixed fruit is poured over the top and then you mix the two up and...eat and shiver. A perfect hot weather treat.

As an aside, here is a list of Korean grocery stores across the US. There are a number in the DC metro area which will make shopping for Korean ingredients much easier. Korean groceries.

Edited to add link to Korean grocery stores.

It is the most popular summer dessert in Korea. There are some variations to make the topping but shaving ice is always same. Mostly red bean jam is used for topping but you can use water melon, banana, kiwi, strawberry and so on.
The following images are the samples of the presentation:

Yum. I could go for one right 'bout now. I think the closest to me is Shilla in Rockville. Oh, I do recall seeing a GIANT version being served up at Bob's 66 as well.

le matin de paris also does them in annandale with vanilla or green tea ice cream in addition to the ice and fruit.

When I saw the title to this thread, the first thing that popped into my head was the episode of the 3 Stooges where they told Curly to shave a block of ice.

The rice cake stall in Super H in Fairfax makes a really good one as well. However, I'll definitely check out the one at Le Matin de Paris. That's closer.

You may need to ask for the dessert menu at Bob's 66 to get the listing of shaved ice options. We opted for a single serving and it was plenty large for 4 adults. Our 6 year-old had already received a smaller version, compliments of the house, which had slightly more pedestrian toppings, such as M&Ms.
I'm not sure that I've seen them recently, but it used to be that you could get a hand-cranked shaved ice machine for under $20 at virtually every Asian market in the area, often in cutesy animal shapes. Ours has 2 little bowls for freezing the ice; one ice disk is enough for two bowls of shaved ice. (12 step program for gadgetaholics, anyone?)