Izzy's - Vanilla & Vanilla Bean

Vanilla & Vanilla Bean - Vanilla Ice Cream and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

I heard recently that Izzy's Ice Cream is not going to reopen their Saint Paul location.  An announcement on their website is here.  That's a major bummer.  They are consolidating operations at their Minneapolis location.  I toured the Minneapolis location last year as part Doors Open Minneapolis and that location does have a larger and brighter manufacturing and storage facility so it makes sense from their standpoint but as a Saint Paul customer it means I'll have to go further to get hand-packed pints.  Interestingly, there was a comment on this review last fall -- long before COVID-19 -- wondering about this possibility.  So perhaps they had been thinking about this for a while?  I am not sure.

Anyhow, today' I'll be reviewing the last two of the pre-packed flavors Izzy's makes available to local grocers.  I got them at Kowalski's on Grand, but you can also find them at Lunds, Hyvee, Whole Foods and a few other places.  I am reviewing both Vanilla and Vanilla Bean flavors.    I combine these flavors into a single review for a few reasons.  First, I find it interesting that a implements both of these -- often they choose one or the other.  That makes me curious as to how much of a difference there is.  Next, I anticipate the difference to be relatively small, so I want to look at them and taste them side by side so I can see how the two vary on the spot.  If I were to try them a week apart then I might not fully remember all the details from the first pint as I'm eating the second.  I have done this before with Häagen-Dazs.  It turned out to be one of my top-five reviews clickwise, so I'll try it again here with Izzy's.  A reminder that the pictures below enlarge when you click on them if you a closer look.

OK, onto the ice cream!  Opening both pints, you can see lots of specks in the vanilla bean pint and no specks at all in the vanilla pint.  There is much more of a visual difference speck-wise here than there is in the  pints.  Both bases have a bright white color, but I do remember from working as a stockboy at a paint store in college that two things that look white can be slightly different.  I wouldn't call either of these 'off' white because they are so close to white, but I see that the Vanilla pint is a warmer white which has notes of yellow and the Vanilla bean pint has a cooler white which has notes of bluish grey.   Taste-wise, both pints get their vanilla from the Nielsen-Massey vanilla company and both taste quite good.  I found the flavors of the two Izzy's pints to be more similar than those of the Häagen-Dazs pints.  With Häagen-Dazs, I thought that the Vanilla Bean had a stronger flavor, but with Izzy's I'm not sure if I would be able to pass a blind taste-test as to telling the two apart.  The main difference for Vanilla Bean with Izzy's is the appearance and they do have a much prettier Vanilla Bean than Häagen-Dazs.  The specks are larger.  The specks in Häagen-Dazs were ground more finely and created a dirtier looking base.

These are well-done implementations of Vanilla from Izzy's.  If you frequently buy Häagen-Dazs Vanilla or Vanilla Bean pints, then you should give Izzy's a try to compare -- and you'll support the local company during these interesting times.  It is 'just' vanilla, I suppose, and not everyone buys premium ice cream for vanilla because they're focusing on the cake or the toppings.  So, I want to pass along some of my other favorites in the Izzy's pre-pack line.  For simpler flavors, I really enjoyed their Chocolate and Chocolate Chip flavors.  For complex flavors, my favorites in the pre-pack line are Midnight Graham Crunch and (if you can find it) Irish Moxie.

Van Leeuwen - Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Chocolate Fudge Brownie - Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Brownies

Today's flavor is from the Brooklyn-based Van Leeuwen Ice Cream.  Since I have not been able to get hand-packed pints at scoop shops lately, I am glad to have found that Kowalski's on Grand carries several flavors of this brand.  Today's flavor is Chocolate Fudge Brownie, the classic chocolate-in-chocolate flavor made famous by Ben & Jerry's in the 1980s and now almost every brand implements a version of this flavor.

Removing the lid, I see the chocolate base has bulged a bit on top.  It looks thick.  There is a note on the carton saying that they get their chocolate from Michel Cluizel company which has been making chocolate in Normandy, France since 1948.  Since Van Leeuwen makes "French-style" ice cream (i.e. extra egg yolks), it makes sense that they would use a French chocolatier.  Digging in, the chocolate base has a similar texture to the other Van Leeuwen bases.  Thick and dense, yet easy to scoop.  I believe that is the effect of the extra egg yolks.  The chocolate flavor is quite good.  It has a gourmet chocolate bar taste to it as opposed to the 'frozen hot chocolate' flavor that some chocolate bases have.  The brownie mix-ins are quite soft, my spoon scoops right through them.  They feel a bit like chewy swirls in this pint.  It is all quite chocolatey.

I enjoyed this pint.  Chocolate ice cream with fudge brownies is a common and winning combination.  This particular implementation is quite well done.  That said, this particular flavor is so straightforward that it does not stick out compared to how every other brand does it.  But it's certainly a good pint to try if you are liking Van Leeuwen's French-style pints and are in the mood for a double dose of chocolate.

Sweet Science - Coffee Caramel Cookie

Coffee Caramel Cookie - Five Watt Coffee Ice Cream with a Thick Swirl of Salted Caramel Sauce and Crunchy Clusters of Newman-O's

Sweet Science Ice Cream in Saint Paul is doing curbside pick-up on Friday's while the Keg & Case market is closed.  Their first bundle was four pie-based flavors: Pecan Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie, Berry Crumble and Grasshopper Pie.  I passed on this one because I have already reviewed three of the four flavors.  (I did like them, click the links to read my old reviews.)  The second bundle featured four caramel-base flavors.  There, the only pint I had reviewed was Salted Caramel itself -- quite good especially if you like your salted caramels noticeably salty.  That left three flavors which were new for me, so I picked the trigger on the bundle. 

The first of these pints is called Coffee Caramel Cookie.  It has a coffee base from their Keg & Case neighbor Five Watt Coffee.  The specific coffee used is their Residency Blend.  I reviewed the coffee base itself a year and a half ago.  Mixed into this are a salted caramel sauce -- which I have previously seen in their Salted Caramel Swirl flavor -- and Newman-O's cookies (the all-organic version of Oreos).  Looks look a good combination of flavors.

Opening the lid, I am greeted by a very generous amount of caramel sauce on the top of the pint.  Wow.  The coffee base has a light color for coffee bases and I can see a few pieces of the cookies in there as well.  Digging in, this caramel sauce is delicious!  It is very gooey and noticeably salty.  Since there is so much of it on top, it dominates the flavor of the first few spoonfuls.  As I eat my way down, I notice the mix-ins.  They are crunchy and chocolatey and are variably sized.  It is like they broken up the Newman-O's and then re-aggregated them into different sizes.  One of the clusters was fairly large which was quite fun.  The coffee base takes a backseat to the caramel and cookies, but I am hit with a wave of coffee flavor once in a while so that's good.  The swirls of caramel sauce are not as thick further down as on the way down but I can still taste caramel in every spoonful.

This is a great pint of ice cream!  Sweet Science is a super-premium brand, so you pay a bit more for a pint, but you really get your money's in flavors like this one.  The caramel swirl is my favorite here, the Newman-O's were clustered very well and the coffee base was a good vehicle for it all.  It is a good combination of flavors.  Surprisingly, I haven't had this flavor combination before.  I've had plenty of coffee/chocolate flavors and a few coffee/caramel flavors but not one that includes all three.  This is delicious.

Häagen-Dazs - Green Tea

Green Tea - Green Tea Ice Cream

While waiting for grocery store freezer cases to get stocked with the new flavors for 2020, I have been taking inventory of some of the popular brands to see how many of their flavors I have not yet reviewed.  I recently discovered I was only three short of a complete survey of Häagen-Dazs flavors, so I figured I might as well finish them off.  The first flavor was Vanilla Chocolate Chip and I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago.  The second flavor is today flavor: Green Tea.  I bought it at Lund's in Highland Park.  This is made with Japanese matcha green tea.  I have reviewed one other green tea flavor: Coolhaus' Mo Matcha Mochi which combined a matcha base with mochi mix-ins.  Let's see how this compares!

Removing the lid, I see the bright green color of the matcha tea base.  Digging in, I taste the green tea flavor right away.  It is quite good.  There is a hint of bitterness which is typical of matcha in the 'finish' of the flavor, but it is not too strong -- just enough to let you know that it is there.  As I continued eating, the flavor stayed refreshing and I had no problems finishing the pint in one sitting.   This is a homogeneous pint with no mix-ins.

I liked this flavor.  It does not have as intenzse of a flavor as the Coolhaus flavor that I reviewed last year, so hardcore matcha fans may prefer that pint, but the pleasantness of this pint might be a better introduction to the flavor of green tea for those who are not familiar.

Talenti - Coconut Chocolate Cookie

Coconut Chocolate Cookie - Layers of Coconut Sorbetto, Oat Crisps, Dairy-free Hot Fudge, More Coconut Sorbetto and Chocolate Cookie Pieces

The third of the four new layers pints from Talenti Gelato is called Coconut Chocolate Cookie.  The first two are reviewed here and here.  I got it at Target in the Midway.  I saw a placeholder price tag for the fourth flavor (Banana Caramel Crunch) at the same store but the slot in the freezer case was empty.  Hopefully they will have a pint in stock soon.  Today's Coconut Chocolate Cookie flavor is a dairy free flavor which means that a coconut sorbetto is used instead of a coconut gelato.  If it didn't say "DAIRY FREE" in big letters, I might not have noticed because Talenti already has quite a few sorbettos in their regular line of flavors.  Also, coconut usually makes for a creamier sorbet than other flavors because it has its own oils and 'milk'.  Here the two layers of coconut sorbet are separated by oat crisps in 'hot' fudge and there is a layer of chocolate cookie pieces on the bottom of the pint.

Unscrewing the lid, like other layered pints I only see the top layer.  Then I go through my labored extraction of a slice from the container.  I do this for the slice photo below, but it actually helps me eat the pint after I'm done.  The coconut sorbetto is pretty hard, I have to push the knife to make my cuts.  Once I get the slice out, as usually I see that the two intersorbetto layers -- the oat crisps and the fudge -- have effectively mixed and it is hard to get the cookies off the bottom of the pint.  OK, digging, the coconut sorbetto is dense and has decent coconut flavor.  It remains dry in my mouth, I almost need to chew it.  The sorbetto is homogeneous -- no chunks or strings of coconut.  The fudge and oat layer is really tasty.  The fudge has a bit of a bite to it, not unlike chocolate syrup and the crisps blend in well and supply some crunch.  The chocolate cookie pieces on the bottom are quite small, they reminded me a bit of mini-chocolate chips.

This is a decent layered pint from Talenti.  My favorite part was the layer of fudge.  The coconut base layers are a bit harder than most of the other layered-pint bases so you might have some issues mixing it together as you scoop it out of the container.  Slicing the pint for the photos helped me out, other people may consider scooping the whole pint into a separate bowl before eating.  If you are careful, you can control how much you blend the layers as you do that.  So, I had some minor issues with this pint, but it was still tasty.  If you're a fan of Talenti's other coconut offerings, then you'll want to check this out.  Also, those with dairy restrictions who have been curious about these layered pints may want to give this a test-drive as well.

Grand Ole Creamery - Peppermint Bon Bon

Peppermint Bon Bon - Mint Ice Cream with Rich Chocolate Chunks

When I was twelve years old, our family went on its first plane trip and left the Minnesota/Wisconsin area for the first time.  We went to New Mexico and Colorado to visit my aunt.  When we were in Albuquerque, we saw an ice cream counter at a local supermarket and my mom decided we deserved a treat because it had been in the high-90s every day that we were there.  My little sister ran up to the counter and started screaming "I want Peppermint Bon Bon!  I want Peppermint Bon Bon!"  The ice cream scooper's face turned sheet white because he had no idea what my sister was talking about.  He just sheepishly said, "... uh... we have strawberry?"  My mom calmly leaned over and said "she means 'mint chocolate chip'" and his face lit up and my sister got what she wanted.  That was the first time I learned that Peppermint Bon Bon was not what everyone in the country called that flavor.  But back then that was what the local brands (Kemps & Land O Lakes) called that flavor.  We often had a five-quart pail in our freezer back then.

Anyhow, today's flavor is from the local Grand Ole Creamery of Saint Paul and has that Peppermint Bon Bon name.  I bought it at Kowalski's in Saint Paul.  As I mentioned above, this was always my favorite flavor growing up -- I got a scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip that day in Albuquerque, too! --  so I always look forward to checking out how each brand does it.  Let's check it out.

Popping off the top, I see all mint!  No chocolate is visible on the top of the pint.  It is a green mint, too.  Many brands have gone away from using food coloring in their mint bases -- mint leaves are green but there is not enough green color in the mint leave to turn an ice cream mint by itself so most natural mint bases are white.  Grand Ole Creamery has used food coloring before in their Cookie Monster flavor and they choose to use it here -- perhaps to increase the nostalgia factor.  The light green base here is actually so smooth and bright that my camera had trouble focusing for the first image.  I am just an amateur photographer and I leave autofocus on.   That's OK almost all of the time, but super-smooth, single-color glossy surfaces can confuse the camera.  Once I dig in, the texture of the ice cream is visible and the focus works again.  The peppermint base is decent and pleasant and not too intense, but it takes a while before I see any chocolate.  Then I see why.  The chunks of chocolate are fairly large -- perhaps sugar cube-sized.  Each chunk is a bit chewy and delivers quite a bit of chocolate flavor when you bite into it.  Eating my way down, I enjoy the texture of the ice cream.  Grand Ole Creamery bases stay firm in the container -- they are not soft serve, but they do melt in your mouth into a cream a little more than other brands.  It is a nice effect.

This is a decent implementation of a mint chocolate chip ice cream from the Grand Ole Creamery.  It has a unique way of mixing the mint and chocolate.  Instead of blending the chocolate into every spoonful, there are large sections of the pint which are mint-only and then some nice large chunks of chocolate once in a while.  I think I would have preferred some smaller chips in the mix along with the bigger chunks (Graeter's does this mix quite well) but I do appreciate the variation from the norm.

Three Twins - Milk Coffee

Milk Coffee - Organic Coffee Ice Cream

I just got word today that Three Twins Ice Cream is shutting down its operations.  They are a Northern California brand which I saw in stores more frequently when I was living in California but I have seen them a few places in Minnesota (Various Co-ops, Festival Foods).  Even though they had fallen out of my rotation, it is still sad to see the loss of an ice cream brand.  They had mostly simple, organic flavors which were not were supper intense or packed with mix-ins, but they were tastefully done.  My favorite flavor so far was Chocolate Orange Confetti -- that was my introduction to blending orange with chocolate.  Yum.  I just online to see if I could find more details about their closing and I found this interesting article from the Nosh Blog.

Anyhow, to commemorate this sad occasion, I ran out to the Mississippi Market on West 7th near Otto to see what they had in stock which I had not tried.  All I could find was Milk Coffee.  It looks like it's a simple coffee ice cream implementation, but it will do.  I suppose this review won't be too helpful if the brand won't be around anymore, but having one last pint seems like the right thing to do.

Removing the lid, the coffee ice cream is a light tan color.  It does seem a little lighter in color than some coffee bases.  Maybe that's why they call it milk coffee?  I suppose all coffee ice cream contains milk, though.  Digging in, the coffee flavor is pretty good.  It is not super strong -- nothing that will give you a caffeine buzz, but it is tasty.  The texture is fairly good.  Easy to scoop but not too soft.  Not too much else to say since it is such a simple flavor.

This is a solid implementation of a coffee ice cream.  It is perhaps a bit muted compared to some stronger coffee pints but it is still quite pleasing to eat.  This sort of lines up with my impression of the brand in general: well thought out and balanced flavors, but perhaps not too strong.  Twin Cities residents may not miss this brand too much because it had not saturated the local market like it had in California but it is still a bummer to see any brand go.