Before They're Gone; an End of Summer Adventure

I know that it's hard to believe, but not all of New York City's ice cream is available year round.  As we cling to the last warm days of summer, some creameries are getting ready to close up shop.  Join me on a special ice cream mission to catch these frozen delights before they are gone.

Oddfellows Carnival

GONE: SEPTEMBER 30th

One of my all time favorite ice cream creators has opened a seasonal pop up shop in SoHo where they are making carnival themed frozen treats which are literally wrapped in fun.  Oddfellows Carnival is only swirling up soft serve; they've got the machines loaded with Caramel Popcorn, Chocolate, Tangerine, and Vanilla.  While you can get any flavor topped as you wish, they are featuring three ice cream carnival creations that are silly and sophisticated and sweet all at once.  

What I got: The Concession Stand - Chocolate and Caramel Popcorn ice cream swirled (this is intended to be made with just the Caramel Popcorn, but they were happy to give me a twist) topped with salted caramel popcorn and chocolate pearls.

What Brianna got: The Pink Dip - Chocolate ice cream dipped in a pink chocolate shell topped with freeze dried raspberries, gold dust, and Pop Rocks.  

What we have to go back for: The Cotton Candy Creamsicle - Vanilla and Tangerine ice cream wrapped in cotton candy (it was a rainy day, and moisture and cotton candy don't mix).

This store finally answers the question, "How much fun can you put on an ice cream cone?"  Turns out the answer is, "All the fun!"  I'm glad that I got my ice cream swirled for two reasons; I really love chocolate, and this might have been a little too salty for me otherwise.  You have to pay close attention while eating The Concession Stand, the popcorn and chocolate pearls will go jumping off of your cone if you aren't careful.  The caramel popcorn was tasty but didn't have the crunch I was expecting.  Joyfully the chocolate pearls stepped in to add a nice texture to the whole creation.

I might have enjoyed Brianna's ice cream more than she did.  The flavors all worked perfectly together; on that we agreed.  The chocolate and raspberries and shell made a sweet, tart, crunchy, smooth concoction of ice cream goodness.  Where our opinions divided was over the Pop Rocks.  I was giddy feeling the crackling on my teeth breaking up the silky sensation of soft serve.  Brianna didn't seem to appreciate the shocking invasion of her otherwise relaxing and pleasant ice cream experience.  To each their own. 

Bonus; they have a photo booth for all your ice cream photo needs.  Take that selfies!

The Rundown:
Where: Oddfellows Carnival 

62 Spring Street

New York, NY 10012

https://www.oddfellowsnyc.com/
What they're known for: Carnival themed soft serve
A single cup or cone: $6.00
Most Extreme Menu Item: Any of the three creations for $7.50
Non-ice cream menu options: Candied peanuts, salted caramel popcorn, cotton candy

Magnum NYC

GONE: OCTOBER 7th

Yes, it's a national brand.  Yes, it's mainstream ice cream.  It's also anything but ordinary.  This summer Magnum NYC popped up in the Meatpacking District bedecked in bling and branding.  There are giant bedazzled ice cream bar sculptures "inspired by the surrounding area" (I don't get it), photo ops for the most Insta-inspired food photographers, and the store's hashtag is absolutely everywhere.  Once you get past all the shine and step up to the counter, you leave the mainstream and enter into a unique culinary experience.  

The whole beautiful process and photo-ready results

How it works: 

Step 1: Pick your ice cream.  Your choices are chocolate or vanilla.  Yes, it's just a normal Magnum ice cream bar... so far.

Step 2:  Pick your toppings.  This is where it gets interesting, and gourmet, and delicious.  Choices include offerings such as organic dark chocolate covered chia seeds, sorbet chocolate curls, pink Himalayan sea salt, and culinary rose petals.  You pick up to three toppings, and they all get spooned into a shaker to be properly mixed.  

Step 3: Choose your dip and drizzle.  Your options are milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate.  You may choose different flavors for the shell and the drizzle on top.

Step 4:  Watch the magic.  The ice cream bar gets dipped into the chocolate of your choosing.  Before it has a chance to harden, your toppings are quickly and expertly sprinkled onto both sides of the bar.  Then everything is covered with a drizzle and finished with an "M" medallion.  

What I got: Chocolate ice cream, a dark chocolate shell topped with amoretti cookie crumbles, dried raspberries, and orange chocolate crispy pearls, with a white chocolate drizzle.

What Eric got: Chocolate ice cream with a white chocolate shell, Greek yogurt buttons, chocolate cookie crumble, chocolate covered sunflower seeds (they are blue), and a milk chocolate drizzle on top.

Our tasty creations

You really feel like you are eating something special as you bite into these custom ice cream masterpieces.  Each flavor and texture makes its way into every bite.  My toppings gave me crunch, saltiness, and a little tart from the raspberries to go with the rest of the sweet.  They also gave me a delicious mess; I was glad that the ice cream was served in the little box it was created on.  

The Rundown:
Where: Magnum NYC

875 Washington Street

New York, NY 10014

http://www.magnumicecream.com/us/en/inside-magnum/nyc-store.html
What they're known for: Custom crafted ice cream bars
A custom bar: $8.00
Non-ice cream menu options: They may have cold drinks.  I don't know.  I was distracted by all the shiny objects.

NOTE: I might have the close date wrong.  The website says through September.  I found an article that says through October.  The date listed is what one of the workers told me.

Malai

GONE: NOVEMBER 1st

My final stop for this catch-it-while-you-can ice cream tour brought me to Gotham Market at The Ashland in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where they have a rotating pop-up space for Brooklyn based business owners to get their delicious wares to the public.  Here I was introduced to the rich, creamy, delicate, and yet intense flavors of Malai Ice Cream.  They offer a soft serve and four hard packed ice creams, all in flavors inspired by an Indian spice palate.  I started by sampling the Coconut-Cardamom soft serve which was rich and creamy and delicious, but with the cardamom I personally could not eat more than a little.  Then I shifted my attention to the hard ice cream and was blissfully whisked away by every flavor.

What I got: Split cone (two flavors) with Rose with Cinnamon Roasted Almonds and Turkish Coffee Ice Cream on a Coconut Cone.

What amazing flavors!  I usually do not like floral ice creams; I find the aroma overpowers the flavor and I can't taste anything else.  The Rose with Cinnamon Roasted Almonds ice cream was delicate and extremely well balanced.  The almond mellowed the rose so that it didn't take over my senses.  The floral and the nuttiness and the spice from the cinnamon all played together beautifully.  The Turkish Coffee ice cream was everything you would want it to be.  It had a well balanced, never bitter coffee flavor, nice and sweet, and similar to the rose, not one flavor overpowered another.  By that point I had also gotten well into enjoying the Coconut Cone which delicately complemented both ice cream flavors.  I could have eaten a few of these cones just as a treat on their own.  

Cone flavors from right to left: blue corn, five spice, cinnamon, and coconut

While I was blissfully enjoying my cone I saw another customer order the Turmeric Ice Cream.  I didn't get to try it, but I have never seen a more beautiful yellow ice cream in all my adventures. 

The Rundown:
Where: Malai

Gotham Market at The Ashland

590 Fulton Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

http://www.malai.co/
What they're known for: Indian inspired ice cream flavors
A single cup: $5.00 A single cone: $7.00
Most Extreme Menu Item: Hand Packed Pint $11.00
Non-ice cream menu options: While there is only ice cream at Malai, Gotham Market is full of a wide variety of food.  Go hungry.  And with friends. 

Enjoy these last warm days of summer and some of these delicious frozen treats while you still can!

Ample Hills Creamery

What is it then between us?

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,

I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,

 - Walt Whitman "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"            

Ice cream with a view... from the rooftop of Ample Hills Creamery

Founders Brian and Jackie took inspiration for the name of their business from Walt Whitman's poem which explores the connection New Yorkers share with one another.  And what can unite the great diversity of people, the pulse of New York, across time and space better than ice cream?  Ample Hills Creamery creates thoughtful, funky ice cream that is perfect for bringing people together.  I journeyed to Gowanus, Brooklyn (Ample Hills has other shops in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and should you be on a magical vacation, Disney World) to try some of their original creations.  And what a taste I got...

I have had my share of ice cream flights through the years.  They are typically three or four flavors served to sample a variety of what that shop has to offer.  At Ample Hills, a flight is your choice of SIX flavors!  That's half a dozen scoops of cold, creamy concoctions to dance across your palate.  I still had trouble narrowing down the choices to pick only a hexad of Ample Hills' unique flavors to make up my flight.  With my selection in hand, we headed upstairs, where there is both indoor and rooftop seating available, to enjoy ice cream with a view.  New York is known for its rooftop bars where you can sip expensive cocktails high above the bustling streets, but only if the bouncer feels you meet the dress code.  I'll take refreshing ice cream, a friendly environment, and a view of downtown Brooklyn over that any day.  

What Greg and I got (because not even I am going to attempt six scoops of ice cream alone, this one's for sharing): Flight - Salted Crack Caramel, Butter Pecan Brittle, The Munchies, It Came From Gowanus, Snap, Mallow, Pop!, and Cookies Au Lait.

I had to go for the flight... but check out that sundae!

Just like when I was taking my first bite, I don't know where to begin.  I wound up diving into the Salted Crack Caramel first out of practicality; it was melting faster than its friends.  The flavor of the ice cream was almost savory, with a slight smokiness to salty caramel ice cream.  The crack caramel is hard and gives a crunch to the smooth base.  Ample Hills makes the crack caramel in house, and you can buy it as a treat on its own.  In fact, they make most of the mix ins themselves.

The Butter Pecan Brittle was the least complicated of the scoops we got.  Many of Ample Hills' ice creams have a lot going on, but I found a simplicity in the butter pecan.  It doesn't take things too seriously.  It knows that sometimes ice cream can just be ice cream, and even when surrounded by crazy combinations, that's a good, pure thing.  The base is a gentle brown sugar cinnamon, with the two flavors well balanced and subtle.  The pecan brittle gives a little crunch but still manages to keep things smooth.  

And then came The Munchies. This is one funky flavor.  It is a pretzel ice cream with chips, crackers, pretzels, and M&Ms mixed in.  It is sweet, salty, crunchy, creamy, and due to the candy, colorful.  The Munchies is everything you want from snack food, turned into an ice cream.  I was not able to identify the chips and crackers specifically, but found the salt and crunch from them for sure.

If there's something you can only get in one place, you can bet I'm going to order it.  It Came From Gowanus is only available at the Gowanus location, and it is as unique as its neighborhood.  The base flavor is a salted dark chocolate ice cream, and I realized that I have never had a dark chocolate ice cream before.  Why does nobody make dark chocolate ice cream?  It's really good.  Mixed in with that is Ample Hills' hazelnut crack cookies (more home made goodness), white chocolate pearls, and orange scented brownie pieces.  It all works; it's sweet and a little salty and rich from the dark chocolate.  I couldn't say for sure that I was able to taste, or is it smell, the orange in the brownie, but I enjoyed it without that element.

Cookies Au Lait was a great coffee ice cream base, not too strong or bitter, very flavorful and sweet with pieces of sandwich cookies mixed in.  This is a rotating flavor, so get to Ample Hills quickly to try it.

The unexpected star of this ice cream sextet was the Snap, Mallow, Pop! ice cream.  It was surprising and unmatched in its originality, and truly fulfilled the promise of being "a deconstructed rice krispie treat".  The ice cream itself is marshmallow flavored.  I was expecting maybe a vanilla or milk flavor with marshmallow pieces or sauce mixed in.  No.  It is in fact truly a marshmallow ice cream.  It even has a texture to it of an ooey gooey marshmallow treat.  With the rice krispie clusters mixed in, it was a cold, refreshing version of what you would make at home, if you went heavy on the mallows.  Great texture, great flavor, great ice cream.

After all that, still don't see something that interests you?  That's ok.  Ample Hills is open to suggestions.

All in all, Ample Hills Creamery provides a relaxed, fun environment and creative flavors to let your imagination run wild.  I highly suggest checking out any of their locations for a very unique treat.  Oh, and if you are reading this, lovely Ample Hills Creamery creators, please do another run of The Dark Side and The Light Side.  I am heartbroken that I missed it.

The Rundown:
Where: Ample Hills Creamery
305 Nevins Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
https://www.amplehills.com/
What they're known for: Original flavors of home made ice cream
A single cup or cone: $4.95
Most Extreme Menu Item: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (banana split) $13
Non-ice cream menu options: Cold and Hot beverages

P.S. Ample Hills Creamery has master ice cream making classes!  I'm going to have to try one.

Davey's Ice Cream: Williamsburg

This week brought me on a nocturnal ice cream adventure.  The good news is that in New York City many ice creameries keep their doors open late for us sweet-toothed night owls.  Davey's Ice Cream specifically boasts on their website that they are "always open late." 

While the original, and slightly bigger, Davey's can be found in Manhattan's East Village, the Williamsburg location is on my regular path and is the perfect place to stop in for a cool treat. The two have the same heart, with just a few differences: they will sometimes have a different flavor or two, the atmosphere and decor are slightly different, and the Williamsburg shop exclusively offers full service espresso.   I am eagerly waiting for their two new locations to open in Chinatown and Greenpoint, due this spring according to the website.

Davey's makes all their ice cream in house using local and seasonal ingredients, creating both traditional and more adventurous flavors.  The scoop artists are excited to make recommendations and offer samples.  Right now they are raving about their Speculoos Chocolate Chip, which started as a seasonal flavor and has found its place on the permanent menu.  

What I Got: Nutella Chocolate Chunk and Berry Brownie Batter Split (two smaller scoops) in a Fancy Cone
What Greg Got: Rosemary Brown Butter

This was a truly satisfying cone, and a big reason for that was the cone itself.  A Fancy Cone at Davey's is a waffle cone dipped in dark chocolate with sprinkles.  The chocolate was a perfect match for both of the flavors I got.  Berries and chocolate?  Check.  Nutella and chocolate? Of course.  All three?  Perfect.  The sprinkles satisfied my desire to have a topping.  I usually avoid all toppings on cones because of the guaranteed mess they will create, but if they are stuck to the cone there's no mess and only more fun.  The cone itself was fortified by the chocolate so there was no crumbling or cone-splosions as I ate it.

The flavors at Davey's are on point.  One of my favorite summer treats is to put fresh raspberries on chocolate ice cream.  It is simple, refreshing, and incredibly satisfying. The Berry Brownie Batter is a perfect stand in as I anxiously wait for the weather to warm and summer fruits to come into season.  It calls to the summer, and reminds me that it is almost here.

I tend to find Nutella overpowering.  It can be too sweet and the nuttiness can be abrasive.  Davey's Nutella Chocolate Chunk is perfectly balanced.  It has a satisfying hazelnut flavor that lives in harmony with its chocolate chunks.  The ice cream does not have the piercing sweetness of its namesake's spread.  It is creamy and refreshing and just the right amount of nuttiness for this nut.

Can we talk about rosemary ice cream for a moment?  I've had it here (including sampling it while I selected this adventure's treat) and from other enlightened ice cream craftsmen.  Rosemary ice cream should be everywhere.  We don't bat an eye at chocolate, fruit, or caramel based flavors.  Anything that we think of as sweet is fair game, but when it comes to a flavor like rosemary, many treat seekers become wary.  I mentioned in my last post that mint is my go-to flavor.  We need to invite more herbs to the party.  When you hear rosemary, you think savory.  I get it, savory ice cream isn't for everyone.  Here's the secret: rosemary ice cream isn't savory.  It is sweet and light and refreshing, just like any well crafted mint.  Rosemary doesn't get carried away. It is simple and satisfying.  Ever have one of those moments where you get lost in all the fancy ice cream flavors that have too many combinations and mixed in toppings?  Rosemary is a delicate alternative to all the noise.  Next time you see it listed on a menu, give it a try.

They must have known I was coming, the giant ice cream cone was chained up.

The Rundown:
Where: Davey's Ice Cream
201 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
https://www.daveysicecream.com/
What they're known for: Homemade traditional and creative flavors and their peanut butter pie milkshake
A single cup or cone: $5.15
Most Extreme Menu Item: Supreme Banana Split, $14.25
Non-ice cream menu options: Coffee/hot beverages, a small selection of candy

Congratulations to the young man who came in with his parents to celebrate getting into his first choice middle school.  You are clearly very bright, for you celebrate with an ice cream cone.  Good luck to you!