Little Giant Ice Cream Thai Green Curry and Key Lime Pie Ice Cream: Known for unusual flavors like asparagus and beez cheese (a combination of goat cheese, honey, and black pepper), Little Giant Ice Cream, located on Telegraph in Oakland, did not disappoint, particularly with the well-balanced Thai green curry ice cream. Equal parts savory and sweet, it's a creamy concoction where the lemongrass is unmistakable, and while it's vegan, it's incredibly smooth. The key lime pie was quite good but did not quite hit the same high point largely due to its slightl... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Bang Bang Ice Cream Avocado and Matcha ice cream: Redolent of butter and baked goods, Bang Bang Ice Cream is a small shop specializing in ice cream sandwiches and waffle cones all made in house. I was lucky enough to experience Bang Bang without having to wait in line, a rarity I'm told. I ordered one scoop, without a cookie or cone, combining two flavors: avocado and matcha. Both were excellent, with a distinct creaminess without being heavy or dense. Having had a lot of matcha ice cream, I was especially appreciative of the deep, rich her... (read more) 4.5/5.0
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Sweet Olenka's Ontario strawberry ice cream: Stumbled upon this minuscule ice cream shop and was drawn in by newspaper clippings praising its unique flavors. Sadly, no especially bizarre combinations were to be found tonight, but I got a very solid Ontario strawberry ice cream that was somehow vegan despite being creamy and smooth. Strawberry flavor was very pure though more light than concentrated. Shout out to the extra nice worker that I ended up having a super long music conversation with on everything from math rock to Molly Nilss... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Garden Creamery Black sesame and oolong ice cream: By now, I've become wary of long lines in San Francisco, and there is nowhere else where this sense of trepidation is stronger than in the Mission, the tech-saturated, ultra-entitled west coast version of Williamsburg. Regrettably, I do find myself here once in a while, often to see a show at the neighboring Chapel, which is exactly what brought me to Garden Creamery, an ice cream shop squarely at the halfway point between the 16th and 24th street Mission BART stops. I had some extra time ... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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San Francisco Hometown Creamery Corn ice cream: This ice cream shop in Inner Sunset claims to be the first to make small batch ice cream completely in house in San Francisco. It has a small town neighborhood vibe, with varnished wood beams and hand-painted murals that are more charming than artistic. Their seasonal corn ice cream had a pastel daisy-yellow color and tasted mostly of cream rather than sweet corn. Its texture was icy, with frozen hard bits or corn throughout (even those pieces did not have an identifiable corn flavor). Based... (read more) 2.5/5.0
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Powder Ube shaved ice with mochi and condensed milk: This is the third flavor I've had from Powder, a Taiwanese shaved ice shop in San Francisco. The first, black sesame, was excellent, with a light texture but creamy flavor. The second, matcha, had a great green tea flavor but was more dense in texture. This last one was, unfortunately, the worst texturally, which is apparent from just the image itself - the starchy potato may have made it harder to achieve the same airy consistency that the black sesame ice had. Ube is a seasonal summer ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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