Cafe Coyote - Fried Ice Cream

 Fried Ice Cream - Vanilla ice cream covered in corn flakes, deep fried and topped with honey, whipped cream

One of my sisters came to visit last week and we went out for Mexican in Old Town and the fried ice cream was so good that we had to make time to go back later in the week.  My sister also encouraged me to write up the ice cream in one of my reviews so here it is -- a rare restaurant edition of the ice cream reviews: The Fried Ice Cream at Cafe Coyote in Old Town San Diego!  (So kitschly amusing that their website plays Guantanamera in the background on a loop)

Old Town San Diego is referred to as the "birthplace of California" and is the oldest remnant of European settlement in the state.  It has become fairly touristy with a large collection of crafty gift shops and Mexican restaurants.  Cafe Coyote is the biggest of those restaurants.  I like to take people visiting from out of town there mainly for the touristy ambience at a decent price but the people I take there always like the food.  On thing this particular restaurant is noted for is its fried ice cream which was featured on an episode of the Travel Channel's "Food Paradise" program.

When the ice cream is delivered to your table, it looks like a golden brown ball in a bowl and is served with a crispy flavored tortilla.  The tortilla was texturally not unlike the chips that would normally go with salsa but there was a bit of sweetness to it instead of saltiness so its definitely the type of chip that would go with ice cream and not salsa.  Digging in, the ice cream was quite good.  Somehow, despite the fact that it is deep fried, the vanilla ice cream remained smooth, light and even airy on the inside, what the deep frying did was caramelize the outer layer of corn flakes, honey and cinnamon a bit.  Corn flake coatings are always a scrumptious coating to almost anything but can be overwhelming in large doses but here the ball of ice cream to coating ratio was large enough so that you enjoyed the tasty shell without it ever being too much.

To tell you the truth, of all the years that I've been living in San Diego, these were my first two times trying the ice cream.  Mexican food can be very filling so it doesn't make me immediately think of wanting dessert, but from now on when I'm taking visitors to Cafe Coyote, I'll always be saving room for the ice cream.  Yum.