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.