#30Years30IceCreams has finally come to a close. 35 ice creams, 30 days. I feel like we have gone on a journey together. A really long journey. A photographic journey, an expensive journey, and least importantly, a caloric journey. Perhaps it seems long because it started in spring, and it is now blazing summer. Perhaps it seems long because I am now carrying an extra 10 pounds of weight on myself.
What will I do better next time? I will NEVER do this again.
What have I learned?
Sugar causes migraines in large doses.
Rolled Ice Cream is the hibachi of the ice cream world.
Chinatown has the coolest ice cream.
It IS possible to have 5 ice creams in one day if you use your phone-a-friend lifeline.
Ice cream photographs really, really well. I have lost 25 Instagram followers since I stopped posting it daily.
I wish I could tell you this is like the MasterCard slogan and that #30Years30IceCreams was priceless, but that would be a lie. I told you I was tracking my ice cream by using mint.com, my new obsession. I tagged all of my ice cream purchases, and I ended up with 19 separate transactions, and a grand total of $142.78 spent. Again, this is where sharing came in handy. Instead of paying for each one, I traded off. Also, it helps that it was my birthday month. A few people bought ice cream for me as a present (shoutouts to Mary and my sister). This low amount of transactions is also thanks to The Scooper Bowl, where I paid $20 (plus 1.99 service fee) and got to have 7 ice cream brands, unlimited, for 5 hours. That’s just over $3/brand. Not too shabby.
I know what you really want to know is, which were my favorites!? My point system was eerily accurate *pats self on back*. I judged my ice cream in four categories: aesthetic, flavor, texture, and overall. You can find my full ratings here on this google sheet. If you order the 35 places by total points, my top five, in order, were: Brooklyn Farmacy, Taiyaki, Blossom, Carvel, and Wu Kong.
#1 Brooklyn Farmacy: 99 Problems Sundae
#2 Taiyaki: Creamy Soft Serve with delicious Instagrammable Waffle Cone
#3 Blossom: Lavender-Infused Rolled Ice Cream
#4 Carvel Cake: Because look at that #hashtag.
#5 Wu Kong: Cotton Candy Cloud Ice Cream, the thing of dreams.
Brooklyn Farmacy sundaes were out of this world. I highly highly recommend going there if you ever find yourself on the other side of the East River. Also, make sure to bring a sharing buddy. They are HUGE. Taiyaki tasted amazing, included a waffle cone, AND it makes for the BEST photos. Pro tip: Always get your nails done first to match the sprinkles. Blossom had the creamy taste you can only get from freshly rolled ice cream, PLUS it had unlimited toppings and lavender-infused flavor. Carvel had to get a high ranking; it had my hashtag #30Years30IceCreams written on it and it was the biggest! Wu Kong… I mean… Look at it. It’s a work of art.
Honorable Mentions go to #6 Sam’s Fried Ice Cream, and #8, Softswerve. In fact, if you are looking for a good-old, no-frills, DELICIOUS soft serve, my #1 choice would be SoftSwerve. It was so creamy. I’d actually go back there soon. That’s saying a lot considering the amount of ice cream I have consumed.
Overall, this has been a great experience, but I do not recommend it to anyone. I still have 8 places left on my map to visit: Amorino, Ice & Vice, Kith Treats, Mikey Likes It, Milk Bar, Milk & Cream Bar, Minus Celsius and Neuhaus. If anyone wants to accompany me, you’ll probably have to wait until next summer. Or my next life. JK I’ll probably be there the next time temperatures hit 100 degrees. Which is likely to be soon, because, New York. I hope you’ve enjoyed my journey more than I have! I still have some homemade ice cream and Carvel Cake in my freezer, so come on over. And if you have any questions about ice creams, I’m your girl.
23 days down, 7 to go. 20 ice creams down, 10 to go, maybe 11, if you don’t count Sip Sak, below. But now it is crunch time. All bets are off. Also, all non-stretch pants are off. I’m officially 3 ice creams behind, but I am picking up speed. I have the next 2 days off of work thanks to the Jews and their cheesecake holiday (more on that later), and I plan on filling them with ice cream, ice cream, and more ice cream. Here’s what I have discovered, I like a complicated ice cream, a mix of flavors, some salt and sweet, some crunch and creamy. After 20 ice creams, you have to do more to impress me than simply sticky a dairy (or non-dairy) product in a cone. I am becoming quite the ice cream connoisseur. I am also counting down the days until my life no longer revolves around frozen treats.
TL;DR
This week was my actual birthday! I am officially 30 years old. Luckily, I started this quest on May 7th, so I have 7 more days to pick up some slack. I also have 7 more days to find my long-lost metabolism, which I am pretty sure I left in my 20’s, somewhere around 22. I have been really sick for the past week, and that has gotten in the way of my taste buds, my energy, and my drive to stuff my stomach with frozen goodies.
This week I went to an old-time soda fountain for AMAZING sundaes. It was the best place I have been so far, and I gave it a 9.5, in case somewhere in the next week lives up to the elusive perfect 10. The next day, I went to Turkish restaurant and had an off-menu lava-cake-like halva-stuffed ice cream dome. It was unique, to say the least. The next day I had a two-a-day (not the gym, god forbid), where I went to Wowfulls for aesthetically pleasing, but gustatorily sub-par waffle ice cream, and Snow Days, for shaved ice cream, something I had never experienced. It was like tasting actual snow, that sort of tasted like ice cream. Low in flavor, high in mental confusion. Think: Dippin’ Dots.
Friday I had a date night with my favorite emoji boyfriend at Cool Mess, where we picked our flavor and toppings, and made the ice cream on the table in front of us! VERY cute date idea, if you don’t mind the kids running around everywhere. Who doesn’t like a date that involves and activity, sweets, and a server who offers to take boomerangs of you!? Saturday, I went to Pier 6 in Brooklyn for Ample Hills ice cream. The view was fantastic, but unfortunately I was too sick to taste the ice cream. Rating of flavor was done by my trusty BFF. The next day was birthday celebration, where I topped off the week with a personalized Carvel Cake, reading, what else but #30Years30IceCreams. Without further ado: Week 3.
Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain is housed in a 1920s apothecary store in Brooklyn. It has only been open since 2010 as a soda fountain, but you wouldn’t guess that by walking in. It feels like going back in time. Even the waitresses, or “soda jerks,” seem old-timey. The sundaes though… to DIE for. They were MASSIVE. Three of us went after spin class, and we had a case of “eyes bigger than bellies” when we ordered 2 sundaes to split. First, we got the Mr. Potato Head, featured on Food Network, which has vanilla ice cream, peanut butter, and warm caramel sauce, topped with whipped cream and surrounded by salty potato chips. WOAH WOAH WOAH. I am a chip girl myself, so this was pure heaven. The salt, the sweet, the caramel, the crunch, the melty peanut butter. AMAZING. Best flavor combo so far on this journey. Then came the big kahuna: the 99 Problems sundae. It was a warm brownie, topped with chocolate ice cream, “doused” in vanilla milkshake, topped with a dark chocolate coconut shell, whipped cream, shaved chocolate and a cherry. This thing was literally larger than my head. See below. Unreal. Between the brownie, and the coconut hints of the chocolate shell (they use coconut oil to harden it), and the vanilla milkshake… I have never had anything like it before. HIGHLY recommend. Also, if you buy a Jerk shirt, you can get free egg creams forever! Or buy Fox’s U-Bet syrup in store, and make them yourself at home.
Photo Opp outside
Clearly post-gym, sitting at the soda fountain.
Mr. Potato Head in all of its potato chip glory
#1 Brooklyn Farmacy: 99 Problems Sundae
This thing was as big as my head.
Bad idea: having a scale at an ice cream sundae spot.
Bargain alert! Jerk Shirt = free egg creams.
Old-Timey things for sale, including Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup for egg creams!
Sip Sak – Ice Cream with a Halva Crust (no official Instagram but you can find geotagged photos here) May 23, 2017
Aesthetic (9) Flavor (6) Texture (6) Overall (7)
This place may not count toward my 30 places, since it is not technically known for its ice cream. However, the restaurant is amazing. So I recommend it with or without the ice cream. It’s a Turkish restaurant with a famous chef known for his off-menu items and Michelin stars. Luckily I went here with a friend who spoke Turkish and she took care of all of the expert ordering. She got Semolina Halva for dessert, which was a pine nut-enriched semolina crust over a dome of creamy ice cream (also off-menu). It was like a Turkish version of chocolate lava cake. The texture of the halva was not my favorite but the ice cream was creamy and a great “cherry on top” of a delicious meal. Also, I always like a hot crust/cold ice cream juxtaposition.
You’d never guess what was inside…
Break it open for gooey goodness.
YUM.
Wowfulls – Hong Kong Egg Waffle Colorful Instagrammable Ice Cream (@wowfulls) May 24, 2017
Aesthetic (10) Flavor (7) Texture (6) Overall (7)
I love me a good waffle ice cream. Last week when I went to New Territories, a patron there told me that Wowfulls had better ice cream, but worse waffles; he was right. The waffle was almost too well-done, so it was crunchy, not fluffy. However, this was a beautiful ice cream. We got the crazy vanilla, which was three colors, but tasted like vanilla. The ice cream was great, the toppings were great (condensed milk, whipped cream, fruity pebbles, mini gummy bears and strawberries), but the waffle was sub-par. Service was fantastic; I was waiting there for 30 minutes for my friend and the workers chatted with me and let me taste as many flavors as I wanted. Overall, I’d say Eggloo or New Territories tasted better, but Wowfulls has a custom painted wall from @jgoldcrown just for photos. You can’t compete with that. Oh, and color-changing spoons! Made my night.
Custom mural stole my heart.
I mean come on, it doesn’t get any prettier than this.
Second stop of the night. This was something different and interesting in a weird way. It was like shaved ice, but creamy like ice cream. It’s a combo of Taiwanese and Korean shaved ice, with a fluffy texture of snow, but creaminess of ice cream. They produce these small batches of ice cream blocks every day, then shave it into cups to order. We got the smallest size possible (which was HUGE), in a YETITRACKS(TM) flavor, which is basically like cookies and cream. The whole place has a Yetti theme, which makes for great photos and adorable cup creations. Extra points for them because we picked the three allotted toppings, and they added Pocky sticks for free for effect (again, always tell them you will blog about it!). Overall, it was a different-tasting experience, not my favorite type of texture, but it was a great value for the money and super cute in photos!
Shaving Ice Action Shot.
This is the cutest looking ice cream around.
It looks just like the wall! Even yettis like taking photos for instagram.
Excitement over MORE color-changing spoons.
You can see the inside here, snow-like texture.
Even the choking poster featured yettis.
Cool Mess – DIY Ice Cream on the table (@coolmessnyc) May 26, 2017
Aesthetic (7) Flavor (7) Texture (8) Overall (9)
This place has been on my list of date ideas for over a year, and I finally got my emoji-bf to accompany me. In theory, I guess it’s a place for kids and kids’ parties, and I think we were the only people there over the age of 15 without kids that were under the age of 5. Oh well. The kids clearly know where it’s at. We picked a vanilla base, and added Oreos, bananas, cookie dough and OF COURSE plenty of rainbow jimmies. It only took 8 minutes of waiting for our ice cream to finish freezing. Probably a long time for kids, but just enough time to instagram/boomerang/snapchat for a girl newly in her thirties. As far as price goes, it’s a bit steep for ice cream ($29.95 for two people), but we had a really fun time and it was a great cheap date, relative to other things! You can’t go to a movie for that, and we got to eat our creation. The flavor wasn’t anything outrageous, but the fun experience (and great company 😉 ) knocked this place up to an overall 9. Plus they had their own Snapchat filter. (Also, expert tip, they sell DŌ cookie dough there, if you don’t want to wait in line for an hour.)
Steps to the mess.
Ice Cream in process…
Mash up the cookie dough, add to the base.
TADA!! Beautiful, DIY ice cream!
Cool Mess: Ice Cream You Make! Emoji BF cameo
The way to my heart is through a customized snapchat filter.
I ran into a problem here: Ample Hills has many locations, but I really wanted to go to this one on the water for the photos. Main problem: they are only open during the day, and mostly only on the weekend! By the time I finally got around to going, I was sick and I couldn’t taste anything. We got Munchies flavor (pretzel-infused ice cream with clusters of Ritz crackers, potato chips, pretzels and M&Ms) and Oh Fudge (Vegan, non-dairy chocolate with coconut milk and a splash of rum). Luckily, I had my best friend with me as a tasting buddy (the flavor is ranked by her). You know what they say about how your other senses are heightened when you lose one? Well that is true. I really enjoyed the texture, and the photos came out great! Aesthetic of the ice cream itself wasn’t anything special, but with the Freedom Tower and Brooklyn Bridge behind it, it was really something. After enjoying some nothing-flavored creaminess, I went home and went back to bed with some Dayquil.
The pièce de résistance of the week: the Carvel Cake my big sis got me for my birthday! And of course she had it iced in the only best way possible: #30Years30IceCreams. I had people over to my rooftop for my big 3-0 celebration, and we could not have had a birthday celebration without ice cream. It was a typical half vanilla-half chocolate with chocolate crunchies in the middle (the best part!). It was a beautiful sunny day, and it was a great break from the sangria-drinking. I also have a LOT left in my freezer. I can have a piece every week until my 31st. Do like Drake and turn my birthday into a lifestyle.
My best friend also hand-baked mini cupcakes and iced them, and stuck them in sugar cones to look like mini ice creams. She knows the way to my heart. Technically that doesn’t count as ice cream, but they were so precious (and DELICIOUS) so I included a few photos below.
Cake Close-up.
#4 Carvel Cake: Because look at that #hashtag.
Happy Birthday to me!
Yum!
Vanilla cupcake ice cream close-up.
Chocolate cupcake ice cream close-up.
It is the home stretch. This Mucinex DM better start working ASAP because I’ve got some catching up to do! Wish me luck and send Kleenex my way.
