Tartine Manufactory Blood orange sorbet and cardamom soft serve: Tartine Manufactory closes its bakery section, including soft serve, for dinner service, but if you ask nicely, they will serve it (as I found out last night). This swirl of blood orange and cardamom was one of the best things I ate all year, with potently spiced cardamom and sharp citrus. The texture was smooth and consistent. Often, independent flavors in swirled soft serve compete and don’t quite work in harmony, but this unexpected combination was both balanced and even better with one a... (read more) 4.5/5.0
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The Penny Ice Creamery Lemon Poppy Seed Ice Cream with Blackberry Compote: Waited in line for about 20 minutes to enter this small ice cream shop in downtown Santa Cruz. Entire clientele was student-aged. They make all their ice cream in house, and they had some interesting flavors like celery and raisin sorbet (which I sampled but found did not taste as much of celery as I would like). I got a mini scoop of their lemon poppy seed ice cream with fresh made blackberry compote, which cost a little more than $4. You can tell from the texture of the ice cream that ... (read more) 3.5/5.0
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Toscanini's Grapefruit Sorbet: I paid a visit to this Cambridge favorite on my visit back to MIT and purchased a mini-scoop of grapefruit sorbet. The portion was generous, and the ice cream had a fantastically smooth texture. A great palate cleanser and very fresh – acidic and slightly bitter, though it did have that slight metallic taste you sometimes get even with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. Despite the cold, the shop was as popular as ever, and it felt good to be back. 4.0/5.0
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Trader Joe's pumpkin pie mochi flavored ice cream: 'Tis the season for an insane assortment of pumpkin flavored products at Trader Joe's, including pumpkin spiced pumpkin seeds. This TJ branded mochi ice cream is so similarly packaged to the Mikawaya brand they also carry that I wonder if it was a partnership. Anyhow, the spiced pumpkin flavor of the ice cream is quite good: rich, creamy, and of the season. But where the dessert fails is the graham cracker bits embedded in the ice cream, which have a dense texture and clearly do not freeze w... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Trader Joe's Joe Joe's 'n Cream Ice Cream: Available year round, Trader Joe's version of cookies and cream tastes very much like any other cookies and cream ice cream you might buy, with a classic combination of vanilla ice cream and chocolate cookies. It likely uses full-fat milk (as the amount of saturated fat is high) and has generous chunks of softened chocolate crumbs throughout. I generally stay away from rich ice cream, especially quart-sized containers, unless it's to be shared among a group, which was the case in this inst... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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