Wrap Up

We had a tour debriefing lunch today at Cafe Luna. First, I must note that we did not see any gelato at Cafe Luna so we're wondering if it's gone for the season. We'll have to go back sometime and ask.

Anyway, we agreed that we liked the flavor varieties at Toscanini's and Christina's and somewhat preferred Christina's because the prices are more reasonable and the ice cream base is not as rich, meaning we can eat more without getting stomachaches. For most consistent we chose J.P. Licks. We had a great experiences both times we were there and although their ice cream isn't as "high-end" as Toscanini's or Christina's, the seasonal flavors are quite interesting and will keep us coming back. We also liked Berryline's original tart yogurt flavor and hope to test more yogurt places in the future. Until next year!

Stop 14: J.P. Licks - Oct. 2, 2009

Because J.P. Licks had just released their October seasonal flavors, we decided to make a return trip in lieu of Cafe Luna. Andrea and I both sampled Sam Adams Cream Stout and agreed that initially there was a strong beer flavor, but that the aftertaste was milder and sweeter. For my main course I got half pumpkin ice cream and half peanut butter cookie dough chip. Allison got half pumpkin and half chocolate sorbet and Andrea had just peanut butter cookie dough chip. All the flavors were great. Pumpkin tasted just like pumpkin pie and the peanut butter chip had a good amount of chips and cookie dough and the right amount of peanut flavor - not too strong or too weak. Allison's chocolate sorbet had a deep, dark chocolate color and a rich, chocolate flavor. A successful J.P. Licks trip - 9/10 overall.

Stop 13: Damons - Sept. 25, 2009

The flavors of the day were dolce de leche, cappuccino, chocolate and strawberry. I got a little dolce de leche and a little cappuccino topped with oreo, m&ms, a few cherries, strawberries and hot fudge. You just can't beat the hot fudge or the price - all that for just $2.50, which is cheaper than any other place we've been on our tour.

Andrea was disappointed because they had neither coconut or mini chocolate chips set out as toppings. Hopefully they'll bring them back and aren't scaling back topping due to the economy. The strawberry juice at the bottom of my dish tasted a little weird - it might have been starting to ferment, but otherwise there were no complaints.

Stop 12: Berryline - Sept. 17, 2009

Even though it was cool and gray out, we were quite pleased with Berryline. They had the traditional tart yogurt, oreo yogurt, or papaya yogurt. They man working at the store was excited when he found out we had never been there before and let us sample all the yogurts. The oreo was good, but I didn't think the papaya had much flavor.

We all chose plain, tart yogurt for a base then then added toppings. I chose mango, raspberries and graham crackers. Allison had chocolate cookie topping, graham crackers and granola and Andrea had strawberries, which she suplimented with chocoalate syrup from the table nearby. We all thoroughly enjoyed our yogurt and toppings. There were so many choices that we'll have to go back to try another combination.

There were various specials and three toppings ended up costing the same as two, so I paid $4.50 for a small (5 oz.). The dry toppings were cheaper so Allison paid a little less than me (around $4.30). Tart yogurt stores are becoming the rage in Boston so we'll have to try some others soon.

Stop 11: Damons - Sept. 10, 2009

Our usual Damons frozen yogurt excursion was spiced up a bit this time by new frozen yogurt flavors. There was chocolate, cheesecake, orange creamsicle, and something pink...I forget the flavor...it might have been raspberry.

I tried a little of each flavor and everything was quite good. We were also excited that there was just yogurt and not a mix of yogurt and ice cream, as had been introduced over the summer. Hopefully there are more "exotic" flavors to come.

Stop 10: J.P. Licks - Sept. 3, 2009

We had all previously been to J.P. Licks and they deliver consistently good ice cream so we were excited about this stop. September's new flavors had just come out so we began by sampling sun-dried tomato basil ice cream. It was really strong - like eating dip or pizza. Andrea and Allison discarded their sample spoons after 1 lick, but I ate the whole thing. While the initial taste was strong, it mellowed out in your mouth as the creaminess came through. I still wouldn't eat an entire cup of this, but it was worth a taste.

Allison and Andrea ordered their favorite frozen yogurts - oatmeal cookie and mint chocolate chip. I was feeling adventurous and tried two new flavors - carrot sorbet and avocado ice cream. The carrot sorbet tasted just like carrot. I was worried it would be overly sweet, but it wasn't. It was a little icy, but had great flavor - overall 6/10. The avocado ice cream was very creamy, but only had a mild flavor. After the first few bites it was difficult to detect, so it also gets rated as 6/10. A small, which is about a cup of ice cream, is $3.75 - pricey, but worth it for the amount and quality of ice cream.

Stop 9: Herrell's - August 28, 2009

We tried Herrell's in Harvard Square for the first stop on the second half of the ice cream tour. I got Elvis' favorite, which was banana ice cream with peanut butter swirl. The banana flavor was not fake, which I liked, but you could also barely taste it, which I didn't like. The peanut butter was good (of course), but there was a huge ball of it in the middle of the ice cream. I like peanut butter, but I ordered ice cream, not peanut butter. The ice cream that surrounded the peanut butter was nice and creamy. Overall I'd rate it as 5/10.

Andrea ordered mint cookies n' cream, which had a strong mint flavor. She was pleased with it, but it was a little too strong for my liking. Allison sampled malted vanilla yogurt, which she reported was disgusting because it had no flavor. The cookies n' cream yogurt I ordered over the winter was also quite icy and not very flavorful so I guess in the future we should stay away from Herrell's frozen yogurt. Allison ended up ordering almond cream. It had a very strong almond flavor, which she was pleased with. It's also often hard to find almond flavored ice cream.

My biggest gripe was the price and serving sizes. I ordered a small and Andrea and Allison ordered kiddie sizes, however we all got the same amount of ice cream. The small cost $3.60 and the kiddie only $2.50. I think Herrell's is the most expensive ice cream store I've ever been to when you consider both cost and serving size. Advice for the future: order the kiddie and avoid the frozen yogurt.

Unofficial Stop: LSA Library Social - July 29, 2009

Today was the annual library staff association ice cream social, which is filled with many, many different flavors of Christina's ice cream. I tried Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip, Butterfinger, Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Gina's Mocha Explosion, Green Tea, Kahlua, Maple Walnut, Mexican Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, Nietzsche's Chocolate Ascension, Totally Hazelnut, Coconut sorbet, and Mango sorbet.

Green tea tasted weird - little too much like Green Tea for my taste with not enough sweetness, but everything else was great. My favorite was Gina's Mocha Explosion because it not only had chocolate chunks, one of my favorite mix-ins, but also brownie pieces. So the texture was creamy, chewy, and crunchy all at the same time. Mmmm.

Stop 8: Damons - July, 24, 2009

The excitement on this Damons' stop came from the appropriate flavor pairings of frozen yogurt and ice cream. You could twist vanilla and cappucinno or raspberry and chocolate. Usually the chocolate and vanilla are always together and the strawberry gets paired with a random flavor, which doesn't always work, such as the time we saw strawberry and raspberry twist. I got a little of everything and topped it with m&ms, raisinettes, and hot fudge. The fudge was very thick, like usual, but quite tasty. It also didn't melt the ice cream - an added bonus.

We all have vacations during the next month, but will resume our tour at the end of August.

Stop 7: Christina's - July 14, 2009

We started our time at Christina's by trying a few flavors. I tried chocolate banana, which had a strong banana flavor, but not much chocolate flavor. It almost tasted liked unsweetened cocoa powder. Andrea had some sort of butter finger flavor, which she reported tasted very strongly of butter finger and nothing else. Allison tried carrot cake, which she reported tasted like rich frosting. This wasn't my experience when I ate it in the past, so I'm not sure the samples do justice to Christina's flavors. Maybe there are too many spices and other mix-ins in each flavor to fully capture all the flavors on one sample spoon.

Anyway, I ended up having peanut butter chip yogurt, which was a new flavor for me. You don't find peanut butter frozen yogurt all that often and I had never had it with chocolate chips. It was creamy, with just the right amount of peanut butter flavor. The chips were small, which was unique. Usually there are large chunks of chocolate in flavors like raspberry chip or chocolate chip. The small chips were very flavorful and because of their size I got chocolate in every spoonful. Overall, 9/10.

Allison got coconut almond yogurt, which she reported was also very creamy and the best yogurt/ice cream she has tried so far on the tour. Andrea had chocolate orange ice cream which she was also very happy with. She reported it was like the orange butter flake she got at Toscanini's, but not as rich.

One scoop of ice cream (1/2 c.) was about $2.75 and two scoops were about $3.50 - an average value for an ice cream place in the city. I think the only negative was that the staff weren't as nice as at some other places. Everyone at Toscanini's is always very nice and upbeat and they let you spend a lot of time sampling. The men at Christina's seemed a little annoyed that we weren't ready to order right away. Overall, though, a great ice cream experience!

Unofficial Stop: Brown's - July 11, 2009

On our way back from Cape Elizabeth, ME, Rich, Andrea and I stopped at Brown's Ice Cream in York, ME, which the Boston Globe felt was one of the best in New England. Brown's is built behind a huge rock, which was really cool. You had to walk down the rock to get to the order window.

For the number of available flavors, Brown's gets 10/10. There were probably about 40 flavors listed, both traditional and creative, such as Blue Earth, Indian Pudding, and Winterberry. I got chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt, which was really creamy with the perfect amount of peanut butter. Unfortunately I didn't notice Blue Earth until I had ordered, but I will definitely go back to try it. It's blue vanilla with oreo and something else in it (I forget exactly what). I give my frozen yogurt 9/10.

Andrea had mint chip explosion, which had a strong mint flavor, chocolate chips, and mini mint patties. We guessed that the mint patties was what distinguished this flavor from the regular mint chocolate chip flavor. Rich got kahlua fudge brownie, which had a strong kahlua flavor and a ton of brownie. The only negative was that the brownie was more like chocolate cake than brownie - it could have been more chewy.

It was $4 for a small, which was about 1 cup of ice cream. Most ice cream shops outside a major city would only be $2-$3 for this amount of ice cream, but Brown's was clearly capitalizing on the summer tourism. However, the ice cream was high quality with a ton of mix-ins and portion sizes were fairly large, so you got what you paid for. We'll definitely be back to try more of the interesting flavors.

Stop 6: Damons - July 10, 2009

For this Damons trip I got vanilla soft serve ice cream topped with caramel, blueberries and a few m&m's. You just can't beat m&m's on soft serve. It adds just the right amount of crunch and chocolate. Anyway, this was the first time I tried blueberries or caramel. The caramel was nice and hot and the ice cream was quite frozen so the caramel hardened on the ice cream rather than melting it, which was nice. It was a little more difficult to eat once hardened, but it still tasted great. I forgot how good caramel tastes on ice cream. The blueberries were also a nice touch. I'd definitely get them again if they're available.

Unofficial Stop: Ben & Jerry's - July 6, 2009

All summer Ben & Jerry's is offering bogo sundaes on Mondays so Andrea and I decided to check it out on our way to class. We both got hot fudge sundaes - mine with vanilla frozen yogurt and Andrea's with half-baked frozen yogurt. Overall, both were quite good. They were served in big bowls, but we didn't seem to get much more frozen yogurt than if we had ordered a small cup. There was probably about 1 cup of ice cream in the bowl, but it wasn't packed down. There was a lot of fudge and it was good. Not too thick, not too thin. There was a lot of spray cream and I didn't eat it all, but it made the sundae look more impressive. We paid $6 for the two sundaes, which is only $2 more than a single small cup of ice cream. Overall the bogo sundae experience was 8/10. And it was much easier to come back from a holiday weekend and go to class knowing that a sundae was awaiting me after work.

Stop 5: Damons - July 2, 2009

A few weeks ago Damons replaced two of their four frozen yogurt flavors with soft serve ice cream and this was the first time we tried it. It tasted slightly more creamy than the frozen yogurt, however the difference was very subtle and if I didn't know it was ice cream I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between that and the yogurt. It seems that vanilla and chocolate will always be the two ice cream flavor and the yogurt flavors will vary (they had strawberry and cappucino when we were there).

I had a base of strawberry yogurt topped with a little chocolate/vanilla ice cream twist. My toppings included strawberries, rainbow sprinkles, m&m's and raisinettes. Damons may not be new and different but you really can't beat the price (we usually pay between $2 and $3 for about 1/2 to 1 c. of ice cream) or the a variety of toppings.

Stop 4: Lizzy's - June 26, 2009

Overall we felt Lizzy's was okay. Andrea tried the coconut ice cream, which had actual shredded coconut in it - a plus in the texture category. She also reported she liked the flavor. Allison got coffee oreo frozen yogurt, which she thought was average. It had a lot of oreo chunks, though, which is another plus in the texture category.

I had the Maddog Mango Sherbet, which is basically mango sherbet with cayenne. It was an interesting combination. At first I thought the sweet and spicy worked, but then it was just overwhelmingly spicy and kind of gross. I felt nauseous after eating a small amount and had to eat something else to get the taste out of my mouth. I can handle the heat, but it just didn't work with the mango. Had there been less cayenne it could have been a good flavor.

There were also other problems. The consistency was inconsistent. There were icy parts and syrupy parts. The flavoring was also inconsistent. Parts were really spicy and parts weren't very spicy at all. Overall I'd give this flavor a 3/10. As for price, it wasn't as good a value as Toscanini's. I paid about $3.60 for a kiddie, which was about 1/2 cup of ice cream.

I've had other flavors from Lizzy's and had a better experience. Both times the ice cream had been pretty creamy and mixed properly. They have some unique flavors, which is a plus, but they could work on flavor strength and distribution.

Stop 3: Toscanini's - June 16, 2009

The clouds finally parted and we were blessed with bright sunshine for our Toscanini's outing. Allison and I tried a sample of our elected signature flavor, Vanilla. More specifically, French Vanilla. It tasted like French Vanilla to me - creamy, lots of vanilla flavor. I need to try other vanillas for comparison, but I'd say it currently ranks as 7/10.

We each decided on unique, Toscanini flavors for our main snack: Vienna finger cookie for me, Orange butter flake for Andrea, and Ginger snap molasses for Allison.

My thoughts on Vienna finger cookie: It was a nice combination. You don't often find vanilla-flavored cookies in vanilla ice cream. The ratio of cookie to ice cream was a bit much, probably about 70/30. I think it would have been better as 40/60 - more ice cream, less cookie. Don't get me wrong, I loved the full-sized cookie pieces, but the bottom of my ice cream was all cookie, not ice cream. Overall I'd give this flavor 7/10.

I tried a little of the other flavors. Orange butter flake was super rich and just like eating an orange truffle. Mmmmm. I'm not a huge fan of ginger, but ginger snap molasses was okay. Very rich with a strong gingerbread flavor.

Stop 2: The Scooper Bowl - June 10, 2009

Andrea, Rich and I arrived at the Scooper Bowl in City Hall Plaza around 5pm. It was perfect weather - cool and cloudy, which kept crowds away. There were people milling about, but no lines. For $8 we each got all you can eat ice cream from about 10 different places. Here's the scoop on what I had:

Baskin-Robbins:
- Premium Churned Light Raspberry Chip - This was definitely not the best raspberry chip I've ever had. In fact it was one of the worst with little raspberry flavor, few chips, and fairly mild tasting chocolate. 3/10
- Rock n' Pop Swirl - I couldn't resist trying some of this neon green colored ice cream that was infused with multi-colored pop rocks. It tasted as I expected - gross. 1/10

Ben & Jerry's:
- Oatmeal Cookie Chunk - I tasted some of Rich's dish and it was amazing. Exactly like eating a very rich oatmeal cookie. 8/10
- Chocolate Macadamia - This was a vanilla/chocolate swirl ice cream with chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. It was pretty good, but the base wasn't as creamy as other flavors. 6/10
-Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road - This consisted of chocolate ice cream, peanut butter cookie dough, brickle candy pieces, and white chocolate chunks. The components were all quite big so I only was able to eat one thing at a time. The combination was kind of weird too. It was okay, but not my favorite. I think Elton John would have preferred the oatmeal cookie. 6/10

Brigham's Ice Cream:
-Confetti & Cream - I just had a few spoonfuls of this. It consisted of a vanilla base with multi-colored sugar candies and tasted quite sweet, as expected. It wasn't too bad. It could have been grosser. 5/10
-Cookies n' Cream - I had a few spoonfuls of Rich's ice cream. It had a very creamy base and a lot of cookies pieces. Pretty good. 7/10

Edy's:
-Take the Cake - I had a few spoonfuls of this and it tasted like cake frosting mixed into ice cream. I think it was a cake batter base. Out of all the rainbow-colored, sugary ice creams I tried, this was the best. It wasn't overwhelmingly sweet. 6/10
-Orange Sherbet - This was one of my favorites from the event. Very creamy and not too sugary so you didn't get a gross aftertaste. 8/10

Garelick Farms/Giffords:
-Maine Lobster Tracks - I thought this would be moose tracks with a different name, however it was different. It was a vanilla base with chocolate ripples that tasted like cadbury chocolate flakes. That was an improvement on the usual chocolate fudge swirls. Instead of peanut butter cups it had bright red caramel cups. I think I prefer the peanut butter cups, but the red color was a nice touch. 7/10

Haagen-Dazs:
Bailey's Irish Cream - As expected, this was nice and creamy with a rich flavor. 8/10

HP Hood:
Strawberry Banana Frozen Yogurt - This had realistic strawberry and banana flavors and wasn't too sweet. It was also fairly creamy. I was impressed. 7/10
Cookie Dough Delight - I tried a few spoonfuls of Rich's ice cream. We both agreed that the cookie dough had a nice flavor, but that the vanilla base was a little icy and not very flavorful. 6/10

Spasso:
Hazelnut gelato - It was creamy, as gelato should be, and the strength of the hazelnut flavor was good, but it has a chalky taste. 4/10

Stop 1: Damons - June 5, 2009

This trip to Damons was pretty normal. They didn't have the variety of toppings they usually do, however they had a greater quantity of the toppings that were there. They also had more nuts than usual and the large, chocolate-covered raisins. Andrea and I both saw a man eating froyo covered in fudge so we gave it a try. Soft serve froyo isn't the best base for fudge because it melts easily, but the fudge was really good. A little bittersweet, which contrasted nicely with the sweet froyo. I also had some chocolate-covered raisins and strawberries on my foryo and the fudge actually sat on top of the strawberries and didn't melt the froyo - a nice surprise. With the discovery of the good fudge, I'd rate this visit 8/10.

the tour has begun!

The official tour of ice cream shops within a 3 mile radius of MIT has begun! We will be posting our reactions to each shop all summer long as we progress through the tour.