David's Ice Cream Reviews: Ice Cream Crawl

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

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

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. :-)