Sebastian Joe's - Nicollet Avenue Pothole

Nicollet Avenue Pothole - Chocolate, Caramel, Heath Bar Chunks, Fudge Truffles, a Fudge Swirl and Sea Salt

Today I review the second pint that I picked up from the Minneapolis-based Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream.  The first was a banana-themed pint called Pavarotti, this pint is called Nicollet Avenue Pothole.  This is one of their most popular and successful flavors.  It is so popular that I am surprised that the website is telling me that it debuted as recently as 2010.  I would have thought that it had debuted in the 1980s like Pavarotti had.  It is a hyper-chocolate pint.  Chocolate base with many chocolate mix-ins.  Lots of brands have a flavor like this, because sometimes a simple chocolate ice cream is not enough.

The flavor name comes from Nicollet Avenue, one of the main north-south streets in south Minneapolis.  Back before Minnesota had major league baseball, the Minneapolis Millers used to play at Nicollet Park which is located on Nicollet Avenue.   In 1967, the downtown portion of the street was closed to all traffic except buses and renamed Nicollet Mall.  This downtown section was the location of Mary Tyler Moore's famous 'hat toss' in the opening credits of her 1970s television show.  Today, a portion of the north section of the street is known locally as Eat Street because it contains so many restaurants. 

Anyhow, on to the ice cream!  Removing the lid, the ice cream is the expected dark brown color.  It looks very thick and rich.  Digging in, the ice cream is very chocolatey as expected.  There is a swirl of chocolate in the chocolate base.  The swirl has been mostly mixed in, but I can tell that the base has been super-charged with chocolate.  I also taste a bit of salt in the mix as well which reminds me that caramel is not the only flavor that can be salted.  I've seen this at least twice before (here and here) and it works quite well!  There are some chunky mix-ins.  Some are just chocolate, others are chocolate truffles (see spoon picture below).  Often these truffles are filled with either caramel or peanut butter, but these are filled with chocolate.  More chocolate!  One thing I did not notice when I was eating the pint was heath bar pieces.  Perhaps they've changed the recipe?  Not a problem though as there were plenty of other mix-ins to enjoy.

This is an excellent pint of "super chocolate" ice cream.  Lots of brands have a flavor like this where they try to see how many kinds of chocolate they can pile together into one pint.  Ben & Jerry's I, Ben & Jerry's II,  Tillamook,  Milkjam Creamery,  New Orleans, ... forgive me if I'm forgetting one.    Sebastian Joe's follows this same tradition and succeeds brilliantly.  Chocolate lovers who are in the mood to go 'over the top' will love this.

McConnell's - Winter Pear Crisp

Winter Pear Crisp - D'Anjou Pear Ice Cream with D'Anjou Pear Pieces and an Oatmeal Crisp

Today is the third and final pint from McConnell's Ice Cream's "Winter Collection".  It is called Winter Pear Crisp.  This is only the second pint that I've had that has included pear -- and the first pint was a sorbet.  This almost appears to be another pie-a-la-mode ice cream (like the amazing pint I just had) in that it has a fruit mix-in and an oatmeal crisp, but I have never had a slice of pear pie.  Recipes for pear pie do exist though, and I do like pear.  So, I am quite curious to see how this turns out.

Removing the lid, I see the base ice cream is very light in color.  Some evidence of mix-ins can be seen under the surface.  Digging in, there is a bit of pear flavor in the base, but it is mainly sweet cream (or perhaps some vanilla, they don't list ingredients for all of the seasonal flavors).  I quickly encounter the mix-ins which I saw below the surface.  There are pear pieces and oatmeal crisp pieces.  They are both about the same size.  The pear chunks are quite substantial.  Often the pear was a bit frozen at first, but if I let it warm up in my mouth a bit before chewing, it was quite flavorful.  The oatmeal was quite good as well.  This pint does indeed have a pie-a-la-mode feel to it.

I liked this pint.  The occasionally frozen pear pieces kept me from liking it as much as the previous two pints, but it is still quite good and pear-themed pints are so rare.  I enjoyed this Winter Collection from McConnell's.  I liked the Blood Orange the best, then the Vanilla Grapefruit and then this Winter Pear Crisp pint.  It was fun to get some excellent and uncommon fruit-themed flavors in this coldest part of the winter.

Pumphouse Creamery - Black Raspberry Crisp

Black Raspberry Crisp - Vanilla Ice Cream with Black Raspberry Jam and Oatmeal Crisp

Today we return to the Minneapolis-based Pumphouse Creamery for another pint.  They have a new flavor for the new year called Black Raspberry Crisp.  It appears to be a berry-pie-a-la-mode flavor.  It looked really good in the scoop shop tubs, so I picked it up.

Opening the pint, I see a lot of beautiful things.  An off-white vanilla base provides the backdrop, there are dark sections of black raspberry jam, lighter sections where the jam has bled into the vanilla and I can see a lot of small little pieces of the oatmeal.  I haven't even dug my spoon in yet!  Digging in, the raspberry jam is quite good.  It is not too sweet and not too tart.  The vanilla ice cream goes very well with it.  The oatmeal crisp ends up being crunchy nuggets that you encounter from time to time.  The mix is quite good, there was a little bit of everything in almost every spoonful.

This is an excellent pint of ice cream and one of my favorites from Pumphouse Creamery.  It reminded me a bit of Jeni's Brambleberry Crisp except it was a different type of berry.  That's quite a compliment as that is one of Jeni's most successful and popular flavors.  Fans of pie-a-la-mode ice creams will be in for a treat when they try this.

McConnell's - Vanilla Grapefruit

Vanilla Grapefruit - Vanilla Ice Cream infused with Grapefruit

Today we continue with the Winter Collection from McConnell's Ice Cream.  I reviewed the first pint last week, on to the second pint.  It is another citrus flavor:  Vanilla Grapefruit.  This is actually my first grapefruit-based flavor!  I am quite curious to see how this turns out.

Removing the lid, I see the off-white color of the vanilla base.  I have not tried their straight vanilla flavor yet, but this looks exactly like you would expect a pint of vanilla to look like.  No hint of grapefruit quite yet.  Digging in, I taste the grapefruit right away.  There is still quite a bit of vanilla in there but a little bit of grapefruit goes along way.  As I scoop further down, I notice there are small yellow specks embedded in the ice cream.  I verify that these are pieces of grapefruit zest.  They are just peppered occasionally through the pint but a little bit can go along way with a strong flavor like grapefruit.

I really liked this pint.  Blending the grapefruit with vanilla is a great idea.  The vanilla keeps the flavor grounded -- and very creamy and just enough grapefruit is added.  It is refreshing and not too tart.

Sweet Science - Brown Butter Pecan

Brown Butter Pecan - Brown Sugar and Brown Butter Ice Cream with Toasted Pecans

Today we return to the Saint Paul-based Sweet Science brand for the second of their monthly flavors.  The January flavors are both very popular staple flavors.  The previous pint was Cookies and Cream and this pint is their implementation of a butter pecan which, believe it or not, is the third-most popular ice cream flavor behind chocolate and vanilla.  They call it Brown Butter Pecan because it includes both brown sugar and brown butter in the base.  Brown butter is unsalted butter which is cooked at low heat until it turns brown.  It can be used in both savory dishes and desserts.

Opening the pint, the base color is yellow in color.  A couple of pecans can be seen right away.  Digging in, the ice cream is buttery as expected and I can indeed taste a little brown sugar in it.  Not too much, but enough to notice.  The pecans pieces are distributed throughout the pint.  They are bare, roasted pecans (no coating) and they taste pretty good.  Crunchy and nutty and goes very well with the buttery base as is the case with most butter pecan implemenations.

This is a very good implementation of a butter pecan ice cream.  For the most part, it tastes like butter pecan, so lovers of that popular ice cream will certainly like this.  The twist of using brown butter and adding brown sugar was fairly subtle, but still noticeable.  I eat a lot of ice cream so I appreciate any twists that brands add to make themselves stand out from other implementations but I will admit that this twist is fairly minor.  That's not necessarily bad, though as you don't want to mess too much with a successful flavor like butter pecan.  This pint is very good.  Enjoy.

Izzy's - PB & Yay!

PB & Yay! - Peanut Butter Granola Ice Cream with Chocolate Crispies and Mini PB Cups

Tonight was not supposed to be an ice cream night.  I ordered out from Pizza Luce in Saint Paul instead.  Much to my surprise, they had pre-packaged pints of Izzy's Ice Cream available to get with my pizza -- and they had a flavor that I have not seen in local grocery stores as well.  Well, I just could not pass this up!  I picked up a pint of a flavor called PB & Yay!  It is a peanut butter-based pint with granola, chocolate crispies and peanut butter cup mix-ins.  That sounds pretty good.  There was an extra layer of foil around it when I picked up my pizza.  I quickly put it in the freezer when I got home.

After dinner and some time to digest (I usually try to eat lighter on ice cream nights), I cracked open the pint.  The peanut butter base is a very light beige color.  It wasn't at all melted from the transit.  Digging in, the base is soft and has a nice texture.  The peanut butter base has a delicious nutty flavor and is not too heavy.  It is quite excellent.  Soon I encounter the mix-ins.  There are three kinds.  The first are the small peanut butter cups.  I mainly taste the chocolate in these because the peanut-butter center is so small.  That's OK because there is peanut butter in the base.  The second type of mix-in is the granola pieces.  These are little crunchy little nutty nuggets with a small dose of sweetness.  Mainly what I notice is the lack of chocolate.  The other two mix-ins have chocolate.  The third mix-in is the chocolate crispies.  These are the same chocolate crispies used in the Snap Crackle Chocolate flavor from last year.  They are crunchy and taste like chocolate-flavored rice krispies (which is pretty much what they are).  Each individual mix-in is pretty good, but as with any pint that contains lots of different types of mix-ins I feel like I am not getting enough of each individual mix-in.  I guess the flip side is that it keeps me from getting too much of one of the mix-ins -- it keeps my taste buds on their toes.

This is a pretty good pint of ice cream.  The best part of the pint is the peanut butter base.  It has an excellent nutty flavor that was not too heavy.  I was able to easily eat the entire pint even after having pizza for dinner.  Each of the three mix-ins was pretty good, but the mix left me wanting to try a pint with more of one of them.  Every time I found myself enjoying a granola piece, then the next spoonful would have a peanut butter cup, etc.  I suppose some might like the pint more for that very reason, but I'd be interested in trying a pint that had more of those granola pieces.  This is all nitpicking though.  Peanut butter lovers who like mix-ins will like this pint.

McConnell's - Blood Orange

Blood Orange - The distinct, crimson tone and intense, orange-meets-berry flavors of Moro blood oranges, infused into our sweet cream ice cream. A McC’s Blood Orangesicle.

I've been reviewing a lot of local brands of late.  Most of the popular national brands have not released their new flavors for 2019 yet.  So, I looked around to see if there was anything that I could order by mail.  Sure enough, the Santa Barbara-based McConnell's Ice Cream has a winter collection!  So, I ordered that and it came the other day.  It was shipped from North Carolina, which tells me that McConnell's is becoming more and more of a national brand -- even if it is not available in my specific area quite yet.  The winter collection contains some cool fruit-based flavors.  As cold as it is in the Midwest this time of year, this is when many citrus fruits are in season.  The first flavor is called Blood Orange.  I have reviewed one other blood-orange-based pint before from Sweet Science.  It should be fun to see how McConnell's implements this.

Opening the pint, the ice cream is a bright coral pink color.  The Sweet Science implementation used a swirl.  This has has blended it into a homogeneous pint.  Digging in, the ice cream is very dense (very low air content) and quite creamy.  A few McConnell's pints I had a couple of years ago would be very hard and almost icy, but that is not an issue here.  This is soft and dense ice cream.  The blood orange flavor is quite good.  Good blood orange flavor, great texture, this is delicious stuff.

As you can see, I really enjoyed this pint of ice cream.  I am a huge fan of citrus flavors which can sometimes be a challenge due to the fact that their acidity sometimes does not play well with milk and cream.  That's not an issue here one bit.  I don't know how they did it, but I like it!  I liked this pint a bit better than Sweet Science, but I do acknowledge that the implementations are quite different.  Sweet Science used a vanilla base with a blood orange swirl, so it had a big creamsicle vibe to it.  McConnell's has the same flavors but all blended up and homogenized.  Anyhow, blood orange fans -- or fans of any orange or citrus -- will love this.

Sebastian Joe's - Pavarotti

Pavarotti - Caramel, Banana and Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

Today, I try a new brand!  My sister in south Minneapolis has been raving about Sebastian Joe's ice cream for years.  They don't sell pre-packaged pints in local grocery stores so I resisted adding them to my list of ice creams to review.  Then one day, I tagged along for my nephew's swimming lessons and there were biographies of swim coaches on the wall with a field for 'favorite ice cream' and half of the coaches listed Sebastian Joe's.  Figuring I was missing out, I picked up a pint of their two most famous flavors.  This first flavor is called Pavarotti -- it has a banana caramel vanilla base with chocolate chips.  Should be fun.

Sebastian Joe's has been in southwest Minneapolis for over thirty years.  I found this really cool scoop shop history in a local neighborhood newspaper website.  It was started by three brothers:  Michael, Todd and Tim Pellizzo.  They grew up in the Twin Cities listening to stories of their grandfather Sebastiano selling gelato as a boy in the small town of Sondrio in northern Italy.  So, when the three decided to open up their own shop, they named it Sebastian Joe's after their grandfather.  Why is their banana ice cream called Pavarotti?  The flavor page mentions that they sent the ice cream to the famous tenor when he was on tour singing in Minneapolis and that he loved the ice cream and asked for more.  In an interview in that scoop shop history above, the brothers mentioned that they sent him the ice cream but they never found out if he ate (they suspect not because singers don't usually eat before they sing), but the story is fun and customers really like the name so it stuck.

Let's dig in!  When I opened the carton, my first reaction was that this looked like cookie dough!  The banana-caramel-vanilla base has the same color as cookie dough and it the way it is hand-packed into the container makes it looks super thick.  Digging in, the ice cream is indeed super thick!  There is very little air churned into this, yet it stays quite creamy.  The first thing I notice when digging in is the strong and delicious banana flavor.  In previous reviews, I have written about the two types of banana flavor that I tend to encounter: an earthy banana-bread banana and a sweet and bright banana-cream-pie banana.  This is more of a banana-bread banana but it is a strong banana than most banana breads.  You can taste a little bit of the caramel in the base -- if you look carefully, you can even see it as it is not fully homogenous.  It blends quite well and adds to the earthiness of the banana.  The chocolate chips are generously distributed and are quite good.  Each chip is a fairly sizeable chunk of chocolate and delivers quite a bit of chocolate flavor.  The ice cream stayed thick all the way to the bottom of the pint.  This is one of those ice creams that would take a long time to melt.

I really liked this pint of ice cream.  The super-thick texture really makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.  I liked this banana-caramel blend and the chips were very thick and chocolatey.  If you are ever at Sebastian Joe's in Minneapolis -- and you like banana -- this is one to try.

Milkjam Creamery - Pillow Talk

Pillow Talk - Strawberry Sorbet with Cardamom Meringue

I went to the Milkjam Creamery in Minneapolis the other day to pick up a pint or two and I ran into this interesting flavor.  It's called Pillow Talk and it is a strawberry sorbet with a cardamon meringue.  I have always been fascinated by cardamom -- it adds aromaticity to other flavors yet I'm always struggling to put my finger on its own flavor.  Maybe it will be potent enough here.  This is the first time that I've seen cardamom paired with strawberry.  I have seen a lot of things paired with strawberry before as a way to numb its strong flavor -- several use cream cheese or cheesecake, balsamic vinegar is not uncommon, and I've also seen rhubarb and tarragon.  I am excited to add cardamom to the list.  Here a sorbet is used to deliver the strawberry, but interestingly this pint is not 'vegan' because meringue is made with egg whites.

The flavor name is fun and cheeky.  Depending on your demographic, it could refer to a #1 single by Zayn from 2016 or the 1959 Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie.  I suppose there are a lot of people in between those two age groups -- including myself.  Anyhow, enough talk, let's eat!

Removing the lid, the top of the pint is gorgeous!  I don't know how else to describe it other than to redirect you to the picture below.  The strawberry sorbet has a pink color almost reminiscent of salmon.  Then there is lots of meringue marbling on top of the pint.  And I am immediately hit with the smell of cardamom.  This is very cool!  Digging in, I am hit right away with the flavor of cardamom in the meringue.  This is strongest dose of cardamom I've gotten in an ice cream flavor.  The meringue itself is otherwise very tangy.  Then I encounter the strawberry sorbet which is flavorful and surprisingly tart -- I see a sweet strawberry more often, but strawberries can be tart as well.  The cardamom does a good job of cutting the tartness of the sorbet.  As I eat my way down the pint, there is not as much meringue as there was on the very top, but there is still enough to taste.  Also, the effects of the cardamom go down as I continue eating.  No doubt it is still there, but my taste buds adjusted after that powerful first taste.

This was an extremely interesting pint from Milkjam Creamery.  Lots of great ideas here.  Mixing a sorbet with a meringue is fun.  I know it doesn't make it vegan anymore when you do that, but it is still dairy free.  Making the sorbet tart and the meringue tangy is quite fun on my tongue as well.  I'd be curious to try other sorbet/meringue combinations.  Mixing strawberry with cardamom is quite interesting as well.  I prefer ice cream over sorbet so this would not be a personal favorite pint for me -- the flavors were fairly intense too -- but it sure was a cool experiment.  If you're up for a bold and unique twist of flavor combinations, then check this one out.

Sweet Science - Cookies and Cream

Cookies and Cream - Vanilla Ice Cream with Newman-O Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Today we review the first of the two January flavors from the Saint Paul-based Sweet Science brand.  This is Cookies and Cream.  I can't believe they haven't done this flavor yet!  Perhaps they have, but it was before I started following them in the fall of 2017.  It looks like they are following the lead of several other organic ice creams and using Newman-O's instead of Oreos.  It should be fun to see how it turns out.

Removing the lid, the top of the pint has an off-white color with some speckles from the cookies visible.  There are differences in cookies-and-cream implementations in how much to crush the cookies.  Some Oreo-based implementations crush the cookies into fine powdery crumbs which colors the base ice cream grey.  The Newman-O's used here are softer and chewier than Oreo's so just a moderate amount of some small crumbs are visible.  Digging in, the vanilla base is good.  It is a bit smoother than usual, so I checked the ingredients and saw that they added white chocolate into the mix.  It tastes good.  Then I encounter the cookie pieces.  They taste quite good, but there are not as many of them as I expected.

This is a simple and straightforward implementation of a cookies and cream ice cream.  The base and the cookies are both tasty.  The only flaw is that the density of the cookie mix-ins is not as high as I was expecting.  Maybe that's something that changes from batch to batch?  I'll be curious to see if this is truly a "January seasonal" or if it gets promoted into the regular scoop-shop rotation.

Izzy's - Butter Caramel Swirl

Butter Caramel Swirl - Light Butter Caramel Ice Cream with a Salted Caramel Swirl

I stopped by the Saint-Paul-based Izzy's Ice Cream the other day to see if they had any new flavors and was surprised to find a new flavor which was pre-packaged.  They do this once in a while.  Last year, I was surprised by Snap, Crackle Chocolate.  Anyhow, I like cases where salted caramel is used to create a more complex flavor.  Looks like they're swirling a salted caramel swirl into a butter caramel base.  Should be interesting!

Opening the pint, but the caramel color of the base looks more tan and less orange than the usual salted caramel.  The swirl is visible in a couple of places.  On one side, you can see a syrup-like swirl and on another you can see some places where the swirl is half-blended into the base (though that sometimes happens on the top of pints).  Digging in, the butter caramel base has a darker flavor than most caramel bases.  This is a burnt caramel flavor rather than a sweet caramel flavor.  It's pretty good.  The syrupy swirl of salted caramel is generously present through the pint so that most spoonfuls have a bit of it.  This caramel has a stronger, sweeter flavor than in the base and is quite salty.  The two caramels go together quite well.

This is a very good caramel-themed pint from Izzy's.  Their salted caramel is one of their more popular flavors -- and that won't change -- but this pint will appeal to those are in the mood for something slightly more complex.  The obvious (local) comparison would be with Sweet Science's Salted Caramel Swirl pint.  As similar as the two pints are, the choice of a butter caramel base here instead of vanilla gives a different feel.  The Izzy pint has an earthy burnt caramel feel which gives the salted caramel some bite while the Sweet Science pint's vanilla base gives a sweeter and brighter feel.  I liked Sweet Science's slightly better, but I could see one having a different preference.

Pumphouse Creamery - Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark - Peppermint Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips and White Chocolate Chunks

I went back to Pumphouse Creamery in Minneapolis last week to pick up a few pints, so I will be going through those in the next couple of weeks.  The first flavor is Peppermint Bark.  I think of this as being a holiday flavor, but Pumphouse keeps it in the rotation all winter long.  I figured I'd take advantage of its availability and pick it up.  This is the fourth pint of peppermint bark that I have had -- previous implementations have been from Häagen-Dazs, Talenti and Sweet Science.  It will be interesting to see how this compares.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid shows all brown -- the peppermint and chocolate are fully blended in the base ice cream.  This is the first I have seen of that.  Most use a peppermint base and chocolate chips (although Sweet Science marbled vanilla mint and chocolate ice cream bases).  Digging in the base tastes like a homogeneous blend of peppermint and chocolate ice creams, so each flavor is about half-strength compared to a straight peppermint or straight chocolate base.  It reminds me of a 'light chocolate' base which I saw in a previous review.  Eating my way down, I quickly encounter the large white chocolate nuggets.  These have the expected chunky texture of white chocolate.  I also see a fair amount of regular chocolate chips as well, though the density of these is not super high.

This is a pretty good pint of peppermint bark ice cream.  I'm a bit mint chocolate chip fan, so my preference is for something a bit mintier, but I understand the need to distinguish this from the standard mint-chocolate-chip.  The blended base and the white chocolate chunks certainly do that.  I am looking forward to trying Pumphouse's mint chocolate chip one day.

Sweet Science - Malted Vanilla

Malted Vanilla - Malted Vanilla Ice Cream

The Saint Paul-based Sweet Science brand has released its January flavors.  It seems like I just finished their December flavors, but who can complain about having so many new flavors of ice cream each month?  There are two January flavors will I picked up when I was there, but today's pint is one from their standard line called Malted Vanilla.  My sister tried and liked this flavor at the Keg & Case scoop shop the other day and she was teasing me that she had had a flavor which I hadn't tried yet.  So, I picked this pint as a bonus flavor.  Checking my reviews, I see that malted vanilla was the base used in their Dynamo Fudge Swirl flavor from last year.  A malted vanilla is also the base used for Ben & Jerry's famous Chubby Hubby flavor.  Sometimes malt is around to supply its own flavor and sometimes it mutes a stronger flavor.  Let's check it out.

Opening the pint shows the yellowish-white color of the malted vanilla base.  The ice cream has a nice thick and creamy texture as my spoon digs through it.  I can taste the vanilla flavor quite easily since there are no mix-ins and I can also taste the malt -- this is a pint where the malt provides its own flavor and doesn't just dull the vanilla.  It is quite good and it is very creamy.

This is a good pint of malted vanilla ice cream.  The vanilla and malt flavors are balanced quite well so that you can taste both -- one does not dominate the other.  The creamy texture is quite good too.  It's just a vanilla ice cream so it may not be as exciting as many of the other pints that I try, but it could be perfect for a scoop that accompanies another dessert.