Sundaes and Cones

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Who else feels awkward when they get a sample spoon of ice cream and they do not have a bucket to chuck it?

Fall is here meaning that I for some reason, people slowly stop eating ice cream. Something about it’s too cold to eat or something. Preying on other’s weaknesses ( I am a horrible human being for thinking like that) I take the chance to hit up ice cream shops that get ridiculously packed in the hotter days so I can get my ice cream fix, line free.

One of those places is Sundaes and Cones, in the East Village. Sundaes and Cones could be a typical cute ice cream shop with usual flavors but they also have some interesting flavors such as red bean, black sesame, avocado and wasabi for the adventurous all leaning towards flavors that would be common in Asia. I was in a fruity mood (yup, set myself up for that one) and they had a fair selection of sorbets I decided to try their guava and lychee ice cream. Guava one of my favorite fruits and is a fruit that is found in tropical areas. It is a flavor on its own but the best way to describe it is it tastes a mix between strawberry and a bit of kiwi, but I realize that the basis of the flavor combinations is unfortunately from Bubblicious gum and bad tasting candy. Lychee is another fruit that I like and usually in the past when I had lychee ice creams, they usually had an overwhelming sweetness and artificial aftertaste but the ice cream of Sundaes and Cones did not have that and had the best replication of the taste of fresh lychee in frozen confection form.

I notice as I was leaving, they were baking up fresh cookies, something that I must get the next time I stop by there and taste, for chocolate chip cookie research and comparison. Sundaes and Cones as the name states, does sundaes that I would like to try in the future, but need to enlist at least another person, so I do not look like a complete fatty.

Sundaes and Cones

95 E 10th St
New York, NY 10003

http://www.sundaescones.com/

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Don't eat ice cream near the fish vendors, it hinders on the ice cream flavors

Whenever I am in Chinatown I always try to make an attempt to go down Mott Street and go to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Granted you have to maneuver your way pass fruit vendors, wet sidewalks, the catch of the day (at least I think it was caught that day) and old Grannies with their push baskets, in the midst of all the hustle of Chinatown sits the Ice Cream Factory tucked away on Bayard Street. 

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is not big, in fact you most likely need to squeeze by people in order to pay and look at their ice cream which now I think about it, is like almost anywhere is Chinatown. They have your regular flavors but you do not come all that way to get a vanilla cone. They have more interesting Asian flavors ranging from the staple of green tea and black sesame to the egg custard and Zen Butter. The Zen butter, as exotic mysterious sounding as it is, is a richly nutty peanut butter-like tasting ice cream mixed with sesame making it a wonderfully overwhelming nuttiness. No, it does not have healing powers and chi balancing agents, but it is tasty and if you want stuff like that, you passed that place, like 4 doors down. Though I like the eerie yet tasty pandan ice cream, I went with the almond cookie and the egg custard, two of the ice creams that are based off of Chinese pastries. The almond cookies I had growing up were stale, crumbly and just sweet. If it tasted like this ice cream, I would have enjoyed it better: rich almond flavor with soft pieces of cookies makes it like a cousin to the American Cookies and Cream. The Egg custard, can be found in any Asian bakery tasted exactly like the namesake pastry, rich in egg flavor and just sweet enough, you need to ignore the thought of how many egg yolks went into making this ice cream, no doubt would startle a Frenchman.

Almond Cookie and Egg Custard

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, though I have been there multiple times (and nerdy enough to get a tee shirt) I have never really had a solid flavor that I get every time I have gone there because there are just so many options and flavors to choose from and they are generous with the ice cream making this a tasty dessert to have after chowing down at Xian Famous Foods that opened up next door.

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

65 Bayard St

NY,NY 10013

www.chinatownicecreamfactory.com/

Big Gay Ice Cream Tru--err, Shop!

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Tastiness of Ice Cream is directly related to the amount of Mythical Animals within the vicinity

I sauntered down 7^th Ave a couple of weeks ago and was greeted with a flash mob of people, all waiting for the grand opening of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck Shop grand opening. All the times I have walked through there, I have never seen so many people and although I wanted to get their soft serve, the line was down the street and I wanted ice cream, but not an hour wait for ice cream!

The Unicorn is like staring into your soul

I came back this previous weekend and thankfully, the grand opening hype had died down and I was finally able to stop by their shop. Even if you do not like ice cream, stopping by their shop is just highly entertaining and to sum up the shop in one word, it would be in the words of Big Gay Al from South Park, “SUPER!” Stepping in you are greeted with a mural of a fairy tale Unicorn and an inflatable unicorn on propped on the opposite side of the wall, even the most hard ass person will utter a couple of chuckles. Everything that they have been serving from their truck is available at their shop and a few other additions as well. Seeing that it was my first time here and overwhelmed by the choices, I decided to go for their most featured creation, the Salty Pimp. Unfortunately not served in a golden chalice with a side of Olde English, it is a cone topped with vanilla soft serve, dulce de leche, sprinkle of sea salt and all locked in by a chocolate shell. It is no ordinary softee cone and makes it clear that pimping is anything but easy, but it sure is tasty. 

The jazzed up soft serve is just one of the few creations that they have and other interesting toppings like, olive oil, wasabi peas and key lime curd. They also have ice pops/paletas from La Newyorkina and ice cream sandwiches made from cookies from the Treats Truck. If you are like me and basically too lazy to go and seek out their truck, you can visit their shop in the East Village and get some whimsical and tasty soft serve. Also, if you are a Unicorn enthusiast, you should check out that Unicorn on the wall. 

Big Gay Ice Cream Shop
125 East 7th Street
NY, NY
www.biggayicecream.com/

Screaming for Ice Cream Again

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Olive Bread and ice cream does not go together

It may be cooling down, but I am still eating ice cream. Actually, I do not think there is a time when I am not eating ice cream. I Originally wanted to stop by the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop on its opening day, but I saw the line at noon, and although I wanted their ice cream, I did not want it that bad and could wait a few days and weeks for the opening day shenanigans to calm down. I however decided to venture over to the Van Leeuwen shop for their ice cream. I noticed for the first time, that they were doing ice cream sandwiches. I already like their cookies and their ice cream and together just made sense. One of their seasonal flavors they had was the Brooklyn Brewery Chocolate stout ice cream. 

Ginger Molasses Cookie Chocolate Stout Ice Cream

The Ice cream was velvety and had a lingering malty flavor that tasted wonderful. The cookies were the molasses ginger cookies that I have had before so on paper, this should be a complete win right? Unfortunately, this was not the case. The ice cream had a gelato consistency, meaning it was very soft and almost runny and the cookies were chewy rather than soft. Biting into it, all structural integrity of this sandwich was lost and ice cream exploded from the sides. This resulted making my hands covered and dribbled in chocolate ice cream (tasty ice cream at least) and looked like I participated in some sort of weird Germanic Fetish show. In short, the cookies at Van Leeuwen are great, so are their ice creams but together ehh not so much. Mo Ice Cream after the Jump!

Ample Hills Creamery

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Despite the inevitable melted mess, ice cream taste a bit better in a cone

No matter how old I am I will always end up with a runny line of sticky, sweet ice cream running down my hand. I should know better given how old I am, but anyway I eat it, I end up with hands of a five year old. But ice cream from Ample Hill Creamery is ice cream that should be eaten out of the cone. Made fresh daily and with local ingredients Ample Hill Creamery is just one of many frozen confection shops opening in New York this summer which is seeing a boom in all things ice cream, if duck is the new pork, ice cream is the new…uhh screw it I can’t think of an analogy. 

Ample Hills is colorful, not just in a figurative way and describing their confections, I mean physically, it is colorful, I believe they hit every Crayola Color spectrum and with a little play area in the back of the shop, it feels like a Day Care center. Besides the kid-friendly decor, Ample Hill Creamery is distinguishing itself with playful and tasty concoctions that Ben & Jerry’s wished they could have come up with first such as the one of their most intriguing ones, the Breakfast Trash which has breakfast cereal incorporated in it. Not like old people cereal like shredded wheat or muesli, more like a 7^th year college senior breakfast of frosted flakes, Captain Crunch, Sugar Pops and Fruit Loops. Although I do not partake in the inhalation of leafy greens, I had to sample it and although seems a bit catchy, it tasted pretty good. The only thing that I did not like is that the Fruit Loops do not fare well to the freezing process to well and they get a bit gummy but other than that, it is a tasty ice cream. 

After much thought and tasting, I settled with the Salted Crack Caramel and the Baked/Unbaked.   The Salted crack caramel, salted butter caramel ice cream with their “crack” cookie composed of saltine, butter sugar and chocolate. Buttery, sweet saltiness with crunch bits played straight into my love for salty sweet combinations. The Baked/Unbaked is vanilla ice cream base with baked chocolate chip cookies and unbaked cookie dough and this combination is the cookie making process, all in one ice cream tub. The crunchy cookie bits with dough cookie dough made a tasty combination. Although it may seem like the ice cream flavors at Ample Hill can seem, quirky and gimmicky, one taste of their smooth ice cream will dispel any thoughts that they are not making a some serious ice cream. Ample Hills is a must stop for all ice cream eaters and with their multiple daily flavors and new ice cream in the works, your palette will never get bored again.

Salted Crack Caramel on top, Baked/Unbaked on the bottom, party all around

Ample Hills Creamery

623 Vanderbilt Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
www.amplehills.com/

Lima: Pork and more Politically Incorrect food!

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: I can stop after eating one Pringle. I cannot however, stop eating after one pork sandwich

The adventure continues as I finally arrived in Lima, well, returned to Lima, I mean I did spend a lovely evening in the Lima Airport Food Court. I was originally planning to visit a ceviche place but due to Peruvian Air being delayed, I got in later than I wanted. I was hungry and I did not want to waste time and wanted something eat. So when I hired car driver came to pick me up, I asked him to take me to a place that had chicharrons. This is how the conversation went down (translated in English to hide my embarrassing and pitiful High School Spanish:

Me: Excuse me, I have a question, do you like eating chicharrons?

Taxi Driver: Yes I do.

Me: Do you have a favorite place?

Taxi Driver: Yes. Wait…do you want to go eat chicharrons?

Me: Yes.

Taxi Driver: let me get this straight, you want to go to the hotel first then get chicharrons, or chicharrons then hotel?

Me; Chicharrons. Now. 

Sandwich Porn after Jump!

Peanut Gallery: the Nutropolitan Museum of Art at OpenHouse

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: My Art History minor was only good for a GPA booster

 Its like the Metropolitan, but with less naked people!

I minored in Art History for actual interest, not because I was under the illusion that Art History was a piece of cake. Thinking Art History is an easy subject is like thinking Family Guy is still funny: you are just fooling yourself. It sounds easy right? I mean you sit there and look at pictures for a good hour and a half and if you are lucky, the seats are comfortable and a great place to sleep and plus, if you are a guy the ratio of guys to girls in an Art History class is very much so in your favor. I wish it was that easy, try memorizing like, 70 images with dates, names, artists, periods and the little subtle details about them. That was hard and I never picked up any girls in my class. Thankfully, I was able to utilize some Rain Man like abilities and utilized my remembering skills and used it as a GPA booster in college. Who would ever think that my love for a food, such as peanut butter would collide, or sandwich together? (I apologize for that bad and forced pun)When I heard about the the Nutropolitan Museum of Art popping up this weekend, I was very interested in going. I mean, peanut butter, one of my favorite sandwich spreads and art that is inspired by said spread? I am in. 

 Gallery, people not included

In honor of national Peanut Month (Since apparently every food has a day and month, anyone care to inform me of national Durian Day?) the Nutropolitan Museum of Art is a pop up gallery that was open from March 4^th to the 6^th. The Peanut Butter themed gallery came from Lee Zalben, owner of Peanut Butter & Company located right here in New York City. Peanut Butter & Co. not only makes smooth and crunchy peanut butter, but making variations such as Maple peanut butter, Dark Chocolate peanut butter and my personal favorite, the Cinnamon Raisin peanut butter spread that has actual raisins. Not only are they making flavor enticing spreads, they are also creating sandwiches which is the theme of this gallery. Zalben challenge himself to create a new peanut butter sandwich for everyday of the year, giving that I can only think of a few, and the majority is changing up the serving platform. Paired with food stylist, Patty White, and photographer Theresa Raffetto the food gallery was born for a weekend only.