Awan Coffee Chocolate Chip Ice Cream: Awan is a vegan ice cream shop with a small "window" in West Hollywood where you can take scoops / pints to go. I'm not normally one to get coffee or chocolate ice cream, but after sampling a few flavors, the coffee chocolate chip was the clear winner to me. The texture is remarkably smooth and creamy for vegan ice cream, and the coffee flavor was toasty and rich, with chips of chocolate chip that had a quality snap in texture. Kiddie size was perfect even for sharing. 4.0/5.0
recommended icecream losangeles vegan awan coffee chocolate chip ice cream 4.0Lopez Island Mint chocolate ice cream: We’ve had some hot weekends in Seattle and I had a sudden craving for mint ice cream the other day, so I decided to treat myself to a new brand I hadn’t tried before. Lopez Island Creamery is based in Anacortes, WA, which I only know from PW Elverum & Sun, and makes, according to the packaging “handmade ice cream one batch at a time.” The ice cream is pure white in color and features bite sized chocolate chips (not the shaved chocolate you sometimes get with this classic flavor). It was exa... (read more) 4.0/5.0
exceptional qfc icecream mintchocolate lopezisland mint chocolate ice cream 4.0Trader Joe's Chocolate & Peanut Butter Joe Joe's Sandwich Cookies: I'm not sure if there's anything more American than these single-cookie serving size sandwich cookies from Trader Joe's, with alternating peanut butter and chocolate layers (essentially an Oreo with peanut butter filling, covered in a peanut butter frosting-like exterior drizzled with more chocolate). On a hot day, the waxy outer coating can melt quickly in your hand. It tastes a bit like a better quality Reese's cup, but with a cookie base (the quality of the chocolate, in particular, is ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
cookies tjs traderjoes chocolate peanut butter joe joe's sandwich 3.0Meiji Horn whipped chocolate snacks: Tall chocolate treats with milk chocolate on either end, an aerated chocolate coating over the middle, and a chocolate biscuit-like interior. Some ingenuity here is in the shape itself, as the snack is meant to be paired with coffee - it's tall enough to dip into a hot beverage and get the combination of crunchy milk chocolate with a whipped chocolate center that melts in your mouth. For me, this was a theoretical exercise as I don't drink coffee and ate these individualky-wrapped snacks on... (read more) 3.0/5.0
japanese meiji horn whipped chocolate snacks 3.0 familymartMeiji My Style Apollo Strawberry Chocolate: These are fun conical chocolate strawberry snacks that I discovered, through my research, are meant to resemble Mount Fuji, which makes them extra Japanese. About 3/4 of the cone is a pink strawberry chocolate, and the last quarter is a milk chocolate base. The chocolate has a satisfying snap, and the strawberry is also nicely tart, though overall it's definitely on the sweet side. I can see how if I grew up eating them, they could easily have become a nostalgic favorite. 3.5/5.0
recommended japanese meiji my style apollo strawberry chocolate 3.5Toms Giant Chocolate Turtle: This chocolate turtle was sent to me from Denmark as part of a conference "goody bag." Its shape is much more realistic than the pecan-caramel chocolate turtles I've had in the states and features a hexagonal shell pattern, paws for its legs, and two extrusions for the turtle head and tail (but with no discernible face). The chocolate shell is pretty thick and about 50% dark chocolate, and inside is a caramel and rum creme that's fairly molten and viscous in texture. I'm not really one fo... (read more) 2.5/5.0
chocolate danish toms giant turtle 2.5