Talenti - Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip

  

Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip - Black Raspberry Gelato with Chocolate Chips

We return to the Talenti brand for a review of their Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip flavor gelato.  I was specifically recommended this pint by a friend several months ago and I'm just now getting around to it.

Unscrewing the lid shows the purplish color of the black raspberry with a few chocolate chips showing.  I also see some roundness to the surface on the top which is more common with gelato than with ice cream.  The first spoonful had plenty of black raspberry flavor.  I like black raspberry.  Sometimes red raspberry is too tart but that is never a problem with black raspberry.   Sometimes I almost think I'm eating blueberry.  The chocolate flavor in the chips is noticeable right away.  The chips are of the small flake variety and they are dispersed evenly throughout the pint.  The gelato itself is soft, but it's still a bit creamy.  Fruit flavors fair well in the softer gelato framework.

I enjoyed this pint.  Black raspberry and chocolate chip is a popular combination.  If a softer gelato version interests you then this Talenti pint is the one to try.  If a harder, thicker ice cream interests you than this one of Graeter's signature flavors.

Häagen-Dazs - Vanilla Swiss Almond

Vanilla Swiss Almond - Vanilla Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Covered Almond Pieces

It is back to the basics for the first review after my trip to New York.  The Vanilla Swiss Almond flavor of Häagen-Dazs is probably the first pint of premium ice cream that I ever had.  Growing up with three siblings, my budget-minded parents usually bought ice cream in five-quart buckets of non-premium brands like Kemps or Land O' Lakes.  It was not until I was in high school or perhaps even college that I starting checking out the premium brands that came in pints.  Vanilla Swiss Almond is the perfect flavor for this transition.  It's not too crazy of a flavor, yet it still has a tasty mix-in.

The Häagen-Dazs brand was founded in New York City by Reuben and Rose Mattus in 1961.  The Mattus family had been in the business of selling lemon ices and ice cream sandwiches for a couple of generations but were having trouble competing price-wise against the newer mass-produced versions of those products which were showing up in grocery stores in the 1950s.  They decided to shift production to a heavier more premium ice cream which contained more butterfat and less air.  Looking to rebrand themselves, they made up a foreign sounding name: Häagen-Dazs.  They imagined that it was from Denmark -- they even put a map of Denmark on early cartons -- but the Danish language does not have an umlaut and the 'zs' digraph never appears in any Danish words.  No matter, the new brand was a big success and eventually spread nationwide.

On to the pint!  Removing the lid shows the white vanilla base with some of the chocolate mix-ins visible already.  Eating my way into the pint, the vanilla is quite tasty.   Häagen-Dazs does the base flavors extraordinarily well and their vanilla is no exception.  The mix-ins are the star of this pint, though.  The chocolate-covered almonds are dispersed liberally throughout the pint.  The chocolate coating completely covers the entire almond piece.  So smooth is the chocolate covering that the outside of these pieces look a bit like junior mints.  Its crunchy almond on the inside, though.  The pieces are of decent size, but they are not whole almond pieces.  They are quite good.  A jar of them would be good by themselves, but they are even better mixed into the vanilla ice cream.

As mentioned above, Vanilla Swiss Almond is a safe pick for people who like vanilla and do not want their mix-ins to be too crazy.   Its more than just that, though, it is also a great pint of ice cream in its own right.  In that regard, this still serves as a 'gateway flavor' into the realm of premium ice cream.

  

Adirondack - Kulfi Pistachio Cardamom

Kulfi Pistachio Cardamom - Pistachio Cardamom Ice Cream with Pistachio Pieces

There is time in New York for one more pint of ice cream so I decided to try another local brand.  Today, we try the Adirondack Creamery's Kulfi Pistachio Cardamom flavor.    The Adirondack Creamery was started in the early 2000's by Paul Nasrani.  It started as an after-work hobby in his Manhattan studio apartment and within a couple of years he was buying larger scale equipment to keep up with demand from his friends and co-workers.  Eventually he decided to quit his day job to make ice cream full time.  When doing so, he decided to relocate to Silver Bay, New York on the north side of Lake George and at the base of the Adirondack Mountains.  This gave the ice cream business room to grow and also provided easier access to many local dairies for ingredients.  They have grown large enough so that pints of their ice cream are now available in New York City.

The flavor today is an interesting twist on pistachio ice cream.  Pistachio is a great ice cream flavor but it is not often found mixed with anything.  It is not something that you imagine mixed with chocolate, caramel or peanut butter, or fruit so the pistachio usually stands alone by itself.  What is done here is to mix in the cardamom spice to simulate the flavor of a dessert called Kulfi which is popular in the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East.  I am interested to see how this pint tastes.

Removing the lid, I can see a difference right away.  Pistachio ice creams are normally green, but this pint is an off-white yellow.  Eating my way into the pint, I could taste the pistachio right away but it was a bit more aromatic than the usual pistachio ice cream.  Cardamom is a new flavor for me, so I was intrigued.  I let my sister try some and she said that's the cardamom.  She eats Indian food more often than me and says it tastes just like the Indian dessert.  She liked it.  I liked it too.  It was a very flavorful pint, but the flavor was soothing as well.  Kulfi is popular because it provides a bit of relief after a hot and spicy main course.

I enjoyed this flavor.  If you like pistachio ice cream and are interested in a twist on that popular flavor then you could give this a go.  Of course, if you like Indian food, you may want to see how the popular Indian dessert translates into a pint of ice cream.  This pint has made me quite curious about the cardamom spice.  I will be on the lookout for other flavors which use this spice.

Ice Cream Crawl - New York City

The view from the Ice & Vice scoop shop

While researching online for New York ice cream brands to review, I found quite a few local scoop shops which were getting good write-ups, but I could not find pints for these in stores near where I am staying on the Upper East Side.  I don't have a car here, so there is no way for me to get hand-packed pints at the shops and then return without the pints melting.  The reviews of many of these places were quite alluring and I did not want to miss out, so I thought maybe I'd take a day to do an ice cream crawl!  Sounds like a good plan.  To prepare, I had a very light breakfast (a small bag of peanuts), I added several location pins to the Google Maps app on my phone, I put on my walking shoes, hopped on the 5 train and headed south.

A quick note before I start.  I am not sure how much thought I can put into each and every flavor or scoop shop that I go to during the walk but I feel like I have to document the experience here  -- at least for my own amusement.

Mikey Likes It

199 Avenue A

Mikey Likes It

 I got off the train in Union Square and headed east.  The first place on my list was Mikey Likes It.  This place has showed up on several top NYC top ten lists, it has been featured by Oprah, and because it was the closest to Union Square it seemed like a good place to start.  I got there just after noon and they were still setting up for the day (the 'closed sign' is still up in the photo).  One of my sisters is famous for eating ice cream for breakfast, but most scoop shops in New York do not open until noon.  I did not see any flavors based on Life cereal, but I did see one which used Cinnamon Toast Crunch (unfortunately, they were out).  I ended up getting a double scoop cup of "Pink Floyd" (double strawberry ice cream with cheesecake chunks) and "Southern Hospitality" (pecan pie ice cream with praline pecans and pecan pie chunks).  The strawberry scoop was quite flavorful.  Strawberry is such a sweet flavor that something is often mixed in to mute it a bit.  Using cheesecake is quite common.  The pecan scoop was also quite good.  I saw Mikey himself in the back, waved to him and gave him a thumbs up.

Mikey Likes It - Scoop of "Pink Floyd" double strawberry with cream cheese chunks on top

Mikey Likes It - Bottom scoop: "Southern Hospitality" - pecan pie ice cream with praline pecans and pecan pie chunks

Davey's Ice Cream

137 1st Avenue (at St Mark's Place) 

Davey's Ice Cream

Just a couple blocks from Mikey Likes It is Davey's Ice Cream.  There's always construction going on in New York so the entrance was obscured by scaffolding.  The shop was open, though.  The inside had a bit of a hipster feel with the wood counter, chalkboard menu, metal tasting spoons and chirpy college kids behind the counter.  Looking at the menu,  I went with one of the classic flavors "Speculoos Chocolate Chip" and one of their special flavors which was called "Toast and Jam 2.0".  I asked what kind of toast it was and the server said "sourdough".  Interesting.  I wasn't sure if that was going to be good or bad but it was worth trying.  The Speculoos side was quite good.  Speculoos (previously seen here) are spiced cookies which are often made into cookie butter.  I think small cookie pieces were used here and not cookie butter.  The cookies were chewy and not crunchy.  Chocolate chips are not often used with speculoo cookies (the spices in the cookies are usually allowed to speak for themselves) but it worked here.  The Toast and Jam 2.0 scoop was indeed interesting.  The base ice cream does indeed taste like sourdough bread!  The jam used here is raspberry.  I think the idea here is that raspberry jam is too strong and overpowering by itself so something must be used to cut it.  The sourdough bread flavoring certainly cut the raspberry flavor, but don't know how often I would crave a raspberry jam on sourdough sandwich in ice cream form.  It's a fun experiment, though.

Davey's - "Speculoos Chocolate Chip" on the left and "Toast and Jam 2.0" on the right

Davey's - Toast and Jam 2.0

Davey's - Speculoos Chocolate Chip

Morganstern's

2 Rivington Street

Morganstern's

I headed further south, I crossed Houston leaving the East Village and entered the Lower East Side.  A couple blocks further is a small street called Rivington and in its first block between Bowery and Sara Delano Roosevelt Park is Morganstern's Ice Cream.  Morganstern's tops many of the online lists so I was eager to try it out.  They have what is called a Heavy Hitter's Menu where they enlist the help of a local chef to concoct a flavor -- it is basically a rotating flavor of the week.  The flavor for this week is called "The Guy in the Kimono" developed by Chef Carlo Mirarchi with the description "when the Lime and the Coco meet the Mexican herb Culantro on the way to the beach".  I had to try that.  For the second scoop, I had Buttermilk Balsamic Strawberry.  The lime/culantro flavor was quite interesting.  I did not taste the coconut but I certainly tasted the lime and culantro.  It made me feel like I was eating Mexican food -- but it was ice cream.  A fun experimental flavor which is perfect for a 'flavor of the week'.  The buttermilk balsamic strawberry was also interesting.  I was recently surprised by a flavor which included balsamic vinegar (I didn't know that could be done) so I thought I'd try it again.  As mentioned before, strawberry can be too strong and sweet of a flavor by itself and something is often used to cut it.  Here, the cutting agent is buttermilk and balsamic vinegar.  It was actually a very successful mix.  The vinegar appeared to be swirled in instead of fully blended.  So, you still tasted the sweet of strawberry with an occasional kick of sour.  Don't be alarmed by my exotic choices.  Since I eat a lot of ice cream, I sometimes tend to pick out something unique on the menu.  Morganstern's also carries many normal flavors, and they have a decent selection of sorbets as well.

Morganstern's -
Guy in the Kimono and Buttermilk Balsamic Strawberry

Morganstern's -
Guy in the Kimono - Lime, Coconut and Culantro

Morganstern's - Buttermilk Balsamic Strawberry

Ice & Vice

221 East Broadway (across Clinton St)

Ice & Vice

I turned back towards the East River towards a neighborhood with which I was not very familiar.  This area is the Lower East Side between the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges.  On East Broadway, there was a small place called Ice & Vice.  It is very modern inside -- it looked a bit like a sushi bar.  They bill themselves as being an experimental ice cream shop and the menu does not disappoint in that regard.  Prepare to be adventurous if you come here because I don't think they have many normal flavors.  I got a scoop of the "Happy Panda" which is black rice horchata with coconut cream and Saigon cinnamon and for my second scoope I got "Nuts of Wrath" which is a marcona almond with grape Kool-Aid jam.  I actually goofed while eating this and mixed up the flavors.  I saw the light purple and thought it looked like grape kool-aid (Purplesaurus Rex to be specific).  It wasn't until I got to the next scoop that I realized I had them mixed up.  The light purple scoop was the "Happy Panda".  I was not bad, but it had a very mild flavor.  I actually did not taste the cinnamon at all.  The "Nuts of Wrath" was much better.  The base was very almond-y and the grape kool-aid jelly was good and was present in just the right amount (not overpowering).

Ice & Vice - Happy Panda on top with Nuts of Wrath below

Ice & Vice - Happy Panda -
Black Rice Horchata, Coconut Cream, Saigon Cinnamon

Cones

272 Bleecker Street

Cones Ice Cream

The next place in the ice cream crawl is called Cones and is way back up in the West Village.  After eight scoops of ice cream from four places in ninety minutes, I was ready for a walk.  It took almost an hour, and by the time I got there, I was ready for ice cream again.  Cones is a family business that makes ice cream with an Argentine style.   It looks a lot like gelato.  I asked the guy behind the counter if it was gelato or ice cream and he said that it has the appearance and texture of gelato but it has the cream content of ice cream.  I got a scoop of the Zabayone flavor which is made from eggs and sweet wine and a scoop of the Honey Cinnamon.  The Zabayone flavor was a revelation.  It was very soft and creamy and had a mild kick from the sweet wine.  Very delicious.  I hadn't heard of this type of sweet wine dessert before and I'll keep my eye out for it in the future.  The Honey Cinnamon was also good.  The cinnamon swirl was thick and provided a good amount of spicy cinnamon flavor.

Cones - Zabayone on top of Honey Cinnamon

Cones - Zabayone

Cones - Honey Cinnamon

Cones - Honey Cinnamon

Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

125 East 7th Street
61 Grove Street

Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Just a couple of blocks from Cones is the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop.  I went to the one on Grove Street in the West Village.  Many people are more familiar with the one in the East Village so I put both addresses above.  It is quite a popular place.  It is soft serve ice cream served in a cone which is then dipped in a variety of things.  I don't usually review soft serve because it doesn't come in pints but I do like it.  When I was a kid and the family would go out for ice cream, we usually went to Dairy Queen.  Here is a look at the menu:

Big Gay Ice Cream - Specialty Cone Menu

I couldn't decide between the Salty Pimp and the Bea Arthur, so I asked the server.  He told me to go with the Salty Pimp.  It was good.  There was a crunchy chocolate coating on the outside, and the sea salt and dulce de leche formed a thick salted caramel swirl underneath the chocolate coating.  The soft serve base was quite good.  I left a happy customer.

Big Gay Ice Cream - Salty Pimp

Big Gay Ice Cream - Salty Pimp

Ample Hills - Gotham Market

600 11th Avenue (between 44th and 45th)

Ample Hills - Gotham Market

I was starting to get full, so I was ready for another long walk.  My last stop was the Gotham Market in western Midtown.  I walked northwest to the start of the High Line and walked that from start to finish.  The High Line goes all the way up to 30th now.  From there it was another mile or so.  The Gotham Market contains an Ample Hills scoop shop.  I reviewed a pint of Ample Hills earlier this week, but there was not a large selection of pints at the grocery store near where I am staying.  I thought I might be able to find more interesting flavors at a scoop shop.  Indeed, I did find more interesting flavors!  I tried to figure out if there was a way that I could get a pint to where I was staying without it melting but decided it would be easiest to just eat a couple of scoops right there in the market.

I got a scoop of "Ooey Gooey Butter Cake" which is vanilla ice cream with cream cheese a St. Louis-style butter cake mix-in and a scoop of  "Hell's Kitchen Sink" which is a Dark chocolate Guinness ice cream with spiced brownies, brown butter cookie dough and toffee pieces.  The Ooey Gooey Butter Cake had a thick and buttery base and the cake pieces were brown and chewy.  The Hell's Kitchen Sink resembled Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk a bit in that it was extra chocolatey with a boatload of mix-ins.  Both scoops were quite good but they were both very thick and heavy and all of the ice cream I had had in the past few hours was starting to catch up with me.  Although there was a lot of walking on the ice cream crawl itself, I decided to walk back to the Upper East Side to at least partially make up for all the ice cream that I ate today.

That's it for the crawl.  It was a lot of fun.  I am already being told that I missed a few places.  I guess I walked right past a place called 10 Below which does Thai-style rolled ice cream.  That sounds very interesting.  I don't know if I can do another crawl anytime soon, though.  :-)

Ample Hills - Ooey Gooey Butter Cake on top

Ample Hills - Ooey Gooey Butter Cake

Ample Hills - Hell's Kitchen Sink

Ample Hills - Hell's Kitchen Sink

Phin & Phebe's - Banana Whama

Banana Whama - Banana Pudding Ice Cream with Hand-baked Vanilla Wafers

I am continuing my survey of New York City brands while I am in town visiting my sister.  Today's review is the Phin & Phebe's Banana Whama flavor.  Phin & Phebe's started in Brooklyn in 2010 as a side business where they supplied hand-packed pints for a couple of markets in their neighborhood.  It was not long before they were able to expand their business enough to where they were able to quit their day jobs.  It seems like a lot of artisanal ice cream brands came out of Brooklyn at around this time.  I chose the Banana Whama flavor partly because I like banana and partly because I like the pun.  It has been over 90 with high humidity every day of my visit -- so it has indeed been a cruel summer here in New York.

There was an extra paper seal which I had to peel off after removing the lid.  Once that was gone, the top of the pint shows the banana pudding base is an off-white yellow.  Eating my way into the pint,  the banana pudding base was a bit less dense than some of the other artisanal brands but the the banana flavor was delicious.   I have noticed that are two types of banana flavoring.  There is the strong, sweet kind of banana flavor seen in puddings and pies which is better is small doses and there is an earthier kind of banana flavor found in banana bread which is best when eating large quantities.  This pint provides a good balance between these two.  Both the first and last spoonfuls were delicious.  The vanilla wafer pieces were decent, but they were relatively small in size and in number.

I enjoyed this flavor, although I enjoy banana more than most so keep that in mind.  This is pretty much the same flavor as the previously reviewed Steve's Southern Banana Pudding.  I liked this pint better, though I did like the wafer mix-ins better from Steve's.   Phin & Phebe's is a fun brand.  They put a lot of effort into the artwork on the sides of the pints and add goofy details to each of their flavor pages on their website.  If you're in the New York area, then check them out.

Ample Hills - Peppermint Pattie

Peppermint Pattie - Peppermint Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Patties

The Ice Cream Reviews are on a road trip!  I am visiting my sister in New York City and I thought I would look for brands here that I have not seen in Southern California.  Multiple folks have recommended the Ample Hills brand so I am giving it a try.   Ample Hills was founded in Brooklyn in 2011 by the husband and wife team of Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna.  The name comes from a line describing Brooklyn in the fifth stanza of the Walt Whitman poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry".  They are a typical artisanal creamery focused on using natural ingredients in creative combinations.  Last year, they got a sizeable influx of investment capital which they have used to build a factory which will make it easier to distribute pints of Ample Hills across the country so if you don't have access to this brand yet, then perhaps it will be coming soon.

For the first pint, I decided on the Peppermint Pattie flavor.  As has been mentioned before, Mint Chip is my favorite flavors so I often use it as a test of a new brand.  Here, Ample Hills has done a bit of a variation on the classic Mint Chip in that they use a "York"-like peppermint pattie as the primary mix-in.  This is an intriguing twist which I am eager to try out.  I also note that the side of the pint contains the words "Frozen Custard" instead of "Ice Cream".  A FAQ on their website answers that curiosity.  I guess this is an FDA labeling requirement due to the amount of egg yolks used in their recipe.

Removing the lid shows the light color of the peppermint base but a very large amount of chocolate mix-ins which give it an almost cookies-and-cream like appearance.  The first spoonful has a lot of mint flavor in the base with small, soft chocolate pieces complementing it -- typical of mint chip.  Then I started encountering the peppermint pattie pieces.  These pieces were quite sizeable and provided a very strong infusion of chewy mint flavoring.  The patties here appeared to be specially designed for their purpose as an ice cream mix-in -- they were thicker and more cube-shaped than a York peppermint pattie.  All of these chewy mint patties resulted in a sweeter than usual pint -- something I noticed more after I had finished eating -- but that did not bother me.

I really enjoyed this pint.  This was a fun twist on the classic mint chip flavor.  Usually the twist is to provide the chocolate in a different way, perhaps by brownies or cookies, but here they've found a way to inject a different type of mint into the mix.   It was a lot of fun.