30 Years, 30 Ice Creams – Week 1

Week 1 of #30Years30IceCreams has officially come to a close and all I can say is WOAH. According to everything my mom said growing up, with the amount of sugar I have consumed I should be hyper for weeks, but I am exhausted. It’s a lot of work eating that much ice cream! I think I have picked up about 20 new Instagram followers, and zero blog subscribers (looking at YOU Pop Bar employees who said you’d subscribe! WTF!). Meanwhile, my 30^th birthday looms closer every day, and I am trying to take advantage of whatever is left of my waning metabolism rate.

TL;DR

7 days down, 7 ice creams consumed, so I am right on track. I taught spinning on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and attended a class on Saturday. Overall, I probably still gained 5 pounds, so I’m right on track with that, too. My mom is V proud, in case you were wondering.

I went to Holey Cream on Sunday, Häagen-Dazs on Tuesday, Emack and Bolio’s on Wednesday, and then Morgenstern’s, Soft Swerve, Dominique Ansel, AND Pop Bar on Saturday. Best photo award goes to Holey Cream with honorable mention to DA, and best flavor goes to Soft Swerve, but each one had something great to boast (HELLOOO Häagen-Dazs was free, my favorite price). Speaking of price, I created a new tag on my mint.com for money spent on ice cream, so I’ll keep you apprised of that situation as well. It all tastes better than vodka though, and I haven’t had any time to drink, so at least there’s that. See, mommy? Not all bad things coming out of this adventure.

I brought along a couple friends throughout the week to share the sugar, calories, and dollars spent. If you try this at home, I highly recommend bringing sharing buddies. For Holey Cream, I had my emoji-bf in tow, and on Saturday, 2 friends did a spin class with me at Peloton (fittingly themed the #RideOfShame) before we embarked on our ice cream journey so we could spin away a few calories. Emphasis on FEW.

Saturday was pouringggg rain all day long. My toes were wet and frozen before we even started tasting ice cream, but it was totally worth it because there were no lines! Nothing scares away a line-loving tourist like 17 hours of nonstop rain. But as they say at the USPS, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” In plain English, we were determined. And rewarded! We had some great surprises along the way: Soft Swerve gave us free stickers to put on our cones (helllooo insta), we found an Empanada Mama along the way for a mid-sugar-coma-break, it happened to be the Cronut’s 4^th birthday, so Dominique Ansel had free treats, AND Pop Bar had a 7-foot popsicle on the wall for photo opps. Speaking of photos, make sure you scroll through all the ratings and commentary to see the fabulous pictures! Without further ado, Week 1 of #30Years30IceCreams.

Holey Cream – HUGE Doughnut Ice Cream Sandwich (@holeycreamnyc) May 7, 2017

Aesthetic (9) Flavor (7) Texture (6) Overall (7)

This was the official start of my ice cream tour. I dragged my boyfriend here (see below) as a quick dessert date, and boy am I glad I did, this thing was HUGE. Sharing required. The wall was painted with the steps to make your masterpiece, although the workers didn’t follow them in order. FAKE NEWS. Gist of it was 1- pick a doughnut 2 – pick an ice cream flavor 3 – pick an icing 4 – pick a topping. There weren’t actually doughnut choices, so that made my life easier, as decisions are not my strong suit (why do you think I’m going to ALL of these ice cream places instead of picking a few?) My emoji-faced-boyfriend basically only likes cookies and cream ice cream, so that step was decided for me. Then we picked Nutella as icing, and rainbow jimmy sprinkles, because Instagram. Obvi. Ultimately, I’m not a huge fan of donuts so I was pleasantly surprised with this deliciousness. The ice cream was just regularly scooped, so nothing great on texture. Definitely recommend, if at least for the photo and the quantity.

The steps that were loosely followed to make our masterpiece.

I mean, COME ON. This looks too good to eat. But we ate it anyway.

Emoji Boyfriend and me, back at it again.

Häagen-Dazs – Free Cone!! (@haagendazs_us) May 9, 2017

Aesthetic (6) Flavor (7) Texture (6) Overall (6)

This wasn’t on my original list but #IfItsFreeItsForMe (one of my life mottos). Free Cone Day was this past Tuesday, and it couldn’t have been more perfect timing. It was my one day off from spinning all week, which left me plenty of time to wait in line. (More on my increased Spin schedule to compensate for these calories at a later time.) I went to the HD across from Columbia, which was probably a dumb move, since college students have no money to BUY ice cream and plenty of time to wait for it. Oh well. The line took 20 minutes and I brought a book. Plus, maybe we saved some bees while we were at it. Häagen-Dazs wanted their “customers” to “pay it forward by planting wildflowers native to their region to help keep bees buzzing,” according to their news release. I got midnight cookies and cream, which was delicious but sort of hard in texture. Also I don’t really care for cones but I felt I could throw it away and save some calories because it was free. #WinWin. Also #Waste but oh well.

Long Lines. Note the backpacks. So many students!

And they had their own snapchat filter! Totally made it even better!

Emack & Bolio’s – Beautiful (but not delicious) Dipped Cone (@emackandbolios) May 10, 2017

Aesthetic (7) Flavor (5) Texture (5) Overall (5)

This place is known for its dipped cones. I picked fruity pebbles because I liked it as an Eggloo topping a few months ago, and it’s pretty for a photo. For the ice cream, I picked Space Cake, which is cake batter ice cream with short bread cookie pieces and chunks of red velvet cake. Sounds amazing, right? Well, it looked amazing. The ice cream was good, not too hard, not too soft, but also nothing too special. The cake batter did taste like cake batter, not very sweet, so it depends what you like. Gearing up for a full week of sugar, I was thankful for the lack of sweetness. Full disclosure, I am not a huge cone-lover, and this place is specifically known for its cones, but even knowing that, I was #NotImpressed. The cone was hard and the fruity pebbles tasted a bit stale. Overall rating: eh.

So many insta-moments. I insta-ed her insta.

Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream – Black Ash, Black Everything Ice Cream – (@morgensternsnyc) May 13, 2017

Aesthetic (6) Flavor (6) Texture (8) Overall (6)

I’ve seen pictures of this dark black ice cream for ages and I always wanted to try it. I didn’t even know what flavor it was. Good news: it wasn’t licorice, which I was dreading. Bad news: it was coconut ash, which literally got EVERYTHING black: napkins, hands, shirt, and teeth!! If you thought red wine teeth were bad, I looked like I’d been smoking cigarettes for 300 years and then used tar as mouthwash (see below). But it tasted great. It was a subtle flavor and incredibly creamy. They hand-make each batch, so they are served out of these little containers that look like leftovers. I felt bad asking for a sample because they had to take out those containers, but the workers didn’t seem to mind. There was a middle-aged man in a full suit there, who brought a photographer to take pictures of him eating ice cream. I asked him if it was for his new tinder pic, but he said they were “making a zine.” Then he sauntered out, photographer and pink pocket square in tow. New York is so weird.

Mini batches of ice cream in containers.

SO BLACK. Soon to be melted on everything.

Many flavors, but that black is so impressive. Also, note the constant phones and photo-taking.

My sharing buddies for the day. Thank goodness.

I’m pretty sexy. I’m aware. I’m also still sweaty. No wonder my bf insists on being covered in emojis.

SoftSwerve – Purble Ube Super Creamy Soft Serve – (@softswervenyc) May 13, 2017

Aesthetic (8) Flavor (8) Texture (8) Overall (8)

“New York’s Yammiest Ice Cream.” Also the creamiest. I went with the swirl ube purple yam and macapuno coconut in a black chocolate cone. The workers here were so friendly, and they offered multiple times for us to try any or all of the 4 flavors. Extra points there (figurative points, since I’m not actually rating service). I tried the matcha, didn’t love it, but I think that’s just because I don’t love matcha in general. The ube was awesome and I loved the purple color! Again I got a cone, but only for the photo. It was supposedly “black chocolate” but it tasted like cardboard to me (loss of points for flavor/lies there). But where they lost in cone flavor, they won in creamy soft serve. Plus they gave us stickers to put on the napkin around out cone. Looked beautiful on my Instagram.

Honorable Mention: SoftSwerve no frills creamiest soft serve you’ve ever tasted.

More photos of my sharing buddies. This was only stop #2 so we had two between three of us.

Dominique Ansel Bakery – Off-menu DKA Salted Caramel Ice Cream Sandwich – (@dominiqueansel) May 13, 2017

Aesthetic (9) Flavor (7) Texture (7) Overall (8)

My research paid off. If anyone looked through my google search history at this point, they’d definitely think I was a diabetic at best, someone starring on My 600 Pound Life at worst. But guess what, it worked. Because I found this off-menu gem by stalking their Instagram. In fact, after I ordered it, multiple people were staring and asking what it was. First of all, you can’t go wrong with a DKA (“Dominique’s Kouign Amann”). In their words, it’s a “tender, flaky, croissant-like dough with a caramelized crunchy crust.” In my words, it’s AMAZING. Then add salted caramel ice cream??? (There was a choice of vanilla or chocolate too, but come on, duh.) Then we added a side of a chocolate chip cookie and milk shot. Better than rum, if you ask me. AND to make it even better, it was the 4^th birthday of the cronut (who knew?! Well, YOU would have, too, if you followed their instagram) so they brought out free cronut holes in special flavors to everyone in line! As I have said before, #IfItsFreeItsForMe. It was still pouring rain, so the line only took 4 minutes. During that 4 minute wait, we got to eat free cronut holes and watch a pastry chef using a blowtorch to make their famous frozen s’mores on a stick (it’s literally served on a smoked willow wood branch). AWESOME experience overall.

My eyes were on the cronut… 4th birthday celebration!

Action shot of the free cronut holes as they were passed out.

Popbar – Handcrafted Gelato on a Stick – (@popbar) May 13, 2017

Aesthetic (7) Flavor (4) Texture (4) Overall (6)

This was our last stop of the day, and luckily it wasn’t too too sweet because I was about to collapse from hyperglycemia. They had many choices for gelato, all made with real fruit and a few ingredients. They are all also kosher (you hear that, rabbis?), gluten and preservative free, and have no artificial coloring. We went with the chocolate banana gelato stick, and dipped it in dark chocolate, then hazelnuts on one side, and pistachios on the other. The texture was hard, tasted more like a popsicle and less like gelato. The flavor was subtle, which is good after 3 other ice creams, but I probably wouldn’t go there if I was craving something sweet. It wasn’t my favorite of the day, and it was very difficult to hold and take photos, which is always determinative to my final rating (one more shoutout here to the loopy cell phone case). They did have a cute oversized popsicle for photo opps, though (see below).