Van Leeuwen's - Mocha Cookie Crumble

Mocha Cookie Crumble - Coffee Ice Cream with Swirls of Chocolate Fudge and Crunchy Palm Sugar Speculoos Cookies

I am still in New York for Thanksgiving and trying to see if I can see how many New York brands that I can sneak into an eleven day trip!  Today I try a pint from Van Leeuwen Ice Cream.  Once I actually bought a pint of this brand at Tim & Tom's Speedy Market in Saint Paul, but I don't think they carry it anymore.  Van Leeuwen is quite big in the New York City area, though.  Today's flavor is called Mocha Cookie Crumble.  It is a coffee ice cream with a swirl of fudge and speculoos cookie mix-ins.  I have had a few pints with speculoos cookies before (see here and here) and many pints mix coffee and chocolate (see discussion on an old review here) but I have not seen speculoos with coffee before.  Spices go well with tea, so I don't see why they couldn't go with coffee as well.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid, I see the coffee base has a light tan color.  I see a couple small fudge swirls visible right away and I also see a fair amount of specks in the base -- specks of speculoos cookies I presume.  Digging in, the ice cream has a smooth easy-to-scoop texture -- almost like mousse or a silk pie but not quite.  I think that may be the 'french ice cream' aspect of it.  If that is the case, it might because french-style ice creams contain extra egg yolks to give it a more custardy texture.  Anyhow, it is quite delicious.  It has a decent coffee flavor with nice ribbons of fudge blended in.  The specks of speculoo cookies that I saw on the top stayed that size throughout the pint.  Because of this, they delivered no crunch and only a mild amount of spices.

This is a solid pint from Van Leeuwen.  I really enjoyed the silky texture of the french-style coffee ice cream and it went well with the smooth and creamy fudge swirl.  I know coffee and chocolate is a pretty common combination, but this one is well done.  It's creamier than the average pint.  I would not expect a lot from the speculoos either flavor-wise or texture wise, but it certainly doesn't take away from good coffee and chocolate.