Coolhaus - Milkshake & Fries

Milkshake & Fries - Salted Tahitian Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Shoestring Fries & Milk Chocolate Malt Balls

Coolhaus has new flavors!  They released them for online order last fall but they released seven new flavors and the shipments come in sizes of six.  So, I waited to see if one of the new flavors would show up in a local grocery store.  Thankfully, a couple of them did!  Today, we try Milkshake & Fries which is one of the more intriguing of the new flavors.  French fries in ice cream?  A second look at the title shows that it is actually shoestring potatoes, but it still a first for me.

From previous reviews, you may recall that Coolhaus was always the brand that was 'architecturally inspired' and each flavor had a architect associated with it -- a flavor mascot if you will.  I don't see these anymore.  Maybe as they added more flavors, they couldn't keep coming up with fun puns on famous people?  It is a bit sad, as googling these people and looking at the cool buildings they built was part of the fun of eating this brand.  I almost feel obliged to link a few architects here.  If you want a pun on the name, you could try the English modernist Maxwell Fry, or the Californian desert modernist Albert Frey.  Or you could check out Stanley Clark Meston, the man who designed the iconic golden arches of McDonald's fast food restaurants.

Enough talk, let's dig in!  Removing the lid shows a foil lid covering the top:

Doesn't that make me feel good!  Am I eating too much ice cream?  Coolhaus tells me no!  I deserve this pint.

As I peel away the lid, there are some extra shoestring potatoes on top!  Also visible are some chocolate crumble all on top of the white vanilla base.  With the first spoonful, the Tahitian vanilla base is quite delicious.  I have discussed the difference between Tahitian and Madagascar/Bourbon vanillas in a previous Coolhaus review.  In short, Tahitian vanilla is not as strong but it is a bit fruitier and more aromatic.  To me, it smells like soft-serve ice cream.  I really like it.  The shoestring potatoes are not as salty or as crunchy as I expected them to be.  They are not bad, but they don't add much beside the texture.  The crushed chocolate malt balls end up doing the bulk of the work flavor-wise.  They contrast the vanilla quite well.

I have mixed feelings about this pint.  I applaud the novelty, but I think the shoestring potatoes would have been a lot better if they were saltier and crunchier.  Some brands have a potato-chip-cluster mix-in which is usually quite delicious.  Perhaps this is another case of a flavor which is a home run in a scooop shop, but hard to deliver in a pre-packaged pint?  Anyhow, I don't want to dwell too much on the negative, there's nothing really bad about the potatoes, I just found them to be like filler.  I did really like their Tahitian vanilla base and the chocolate malt crumble is good.  If you're curious, don't be afraid to give it a try.  Perhaps you'll like the fries better than me.