you are visitor number

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Great American Ice Cream Betch


This past Saturday June 28th, the peeps from No Cookie Left Behind (www.Myspace.com/NoCookieLeftBehind), Spork Foods, and other fellow Angelenos held their own GREAT AMERICAN BAKE SALE outside of SCOOPS ice cream shop on Heliotrope in LA to support SHARE OUR STRENGTH, an organization working to end childhood hunger in America (See STRENGTH.ORG for more info).
I was excited all week about this event after seeing a post about it on yelp.com and geared myself up for goodies and helping the kiddies! I went ahead and added NoCookieLeftBehind to my Myspace and made sure to eat a light breakfast that morning.
Two tables and a big umbrella were set up in the corner right outside of the shop and they were completely covered with deliciousness! Cakes, cookies, cupcakes, banana bread, zucchini bread, lemon cake, tarts, etc. There were vegan goodies too!

For $8 I got a hefty slice of zucchini bread, lemon cake, a chocolate chip cookie with a gooey marshmallow center and a small square piece of baklava.


Since we were at Scoops anyways Joanna and I of course got some ice cream. There were a lot of alcohol related flavors, chocolate guinness, watermelon triple sec, etc. I opted for the pear champagne and a scoop of the vegan soy based maple oreo while Joanna went for a butterscotch flavor (mixed with almond I believe). All of the flavors were quite tasty. The pear champagne was more of a sorbet, so it was a little melty and icier but still had a strong clean pear flavor. The maple oreo is a maple ice cream, not too rich, with oreo chunks and bits in it. The awesome thing about Scoops is that not only is the ice cream delicious and different all the time, there's friendly service (one of the guys at the counter remembered us and asked us how it was going, a really chipper dude) and plenty of people watching! Especially on a busy bake sale Saturday. Joanna noted too that there's always attractive, hip, interesting looking folks hanging out at Scoops and I agree. Where they hang out when they're not at Scoops I have no idea but I'm glad that they find a common stomping ground at Scoops.

Post bake sale randomness:
I also told my sanfran friend and partner in mischief,Jenny about it we were just about ready to quit our day jobs and purchase many a colorful Kitchen Aid Mixer and join in with the baking! Which is still entirely possible so if next time you hear from us and we're in Austin or Boise or San Fran and we're dishing up red velvet cupcakes, you can bet your britches some of our proceeds will be going to this organization, amongst many others (perhaps another charity birthday indie designer birthday bash to support vday?). Onward ho righteous cupcake lovers!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Apologies!


We are falling way behind on the updates on this here ice cream betches blog of awesomeness. So here's a mini-update re: the last week of ice cream joy.

Mid-week we had some fun with Starbucks store-bought Java Chip ice cream and Herrell's fudge (so far, the fudge won out over any and every other ice cream experience...as expected). The Java Chip was a good consistency, and held up against the fudge unexpectedly well. Delicious, all around.

Yesterday, I went to a diner called Dolores on Santa Monica Blvd for a milkshake: vanilla - pretending to be Uma in Pulp Fiction, of course. Exactly as expected - the flavor, the consistency, the large styrofoam cup (take-out milkshake). It hit the spot at the time, but for $5 I think there's better ice cream out there. Yeesh, expensive diners in these here parts.

Stay tuned for better updates, and more exciting ice cream adventures!

Dolores Restaurant
11407 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025-3009

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Fred 62 (it counts!)

Last night before a screening of The Lady Eve at the Silent Movie Theatre, Savannah and I had a cathartic waffle at Fred 62 - well, more accurately, I had the waffle, she had the catharsis. I mean tuna melt.

The food was awesome as usual - I mixed it up a bit and had a waffle SUNDAE, hence the post on Ice Cream Betches. The sundae was a vanilla ice cream/dulce de leche conglomeration of deliciousness. I'd say, so far, the ice cream was the best I've had in LA. I'm not a huge fan of vanilla on its own (with hot fudge? yes. in a milk shake? a five dollar shake? so I can pretend I'm Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction? Absolutely. On its own, not so much). But this vanilla was pretty good. The consistency was perfect for a sundae - melty enough to complement the waffle - you didn't feel as though the textures were competing. And the taste was premium quality - none of that ice-chip nonsense or too bland to have a flavor.

Savannah pointed out the little black vanilla bean dots in the ice cream, mentioning that that is a good sign of quality. I speculated that some companies probably put those in now at this point, just to imply quality where there is none; but, not the case with Fred 62. I forgot to ask if they make their own ice cream - the only flavor available on the menu was vanilla - but it's worth it. Plus, the rest of the food is awesome, so go check it out!

Fred 62
1850 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Zanzabelle!



This past Saturday, Emily and I took our ice cream testing selves to Zanzabelle. Our adventure definitely started out on an awkward foot; we parked, left the car...and remembered I'd forgotten my crackberry. So we trudged two blocks back to get it, and left to find an ATM...only to realize on arriving there that we'd forgotten to put money in the meter. So we basically did a circuitous route (very complicated, LA is not made for walkers) three times before finally managing to get across the street to Zanzabelle, where our ice cream waited for us.

When we entered the gift shop, we saw many delightful objects: red skulls, miniature soap shaped like baby hands, coloring books, a Rosa Parks pez dispenser - hell, it had everything you could want and more! We decided to purchase some lunch while waiting for the arrival of Savannah and crew. Our sandwiches were delicious, though very chipotle-y; we worried for a bit that we'd look like we'd been crying when our other friends arrived! Fortunately, we managed to clear our heads before the folks rolled up.

Lunch and ice cream commenced. The flavors were okay - chocolate, mint chip, strawberry chocolate chip, salty caramel and cappucino [again, sic] crunch being the two most interesting. I opted for the cappucino crunch and the mint chip. Savannah had chocolate. Emily was daring and put a cone on top of her dish.

I have to say, thus far this was the most typical ice cream we've tried. Very local ice-cream stand - I'd even compare it to a Breyer's or Dreyer's store-bought - generic texture, generic flavor. I believe the ice cream sold at Zanzabelle is Fosselman's, which is supposedly one of the best ice creams in LA. I'd give it one thumb up - good enough to do the job, fine if you're looking for ice cream out with friends, a great shopping experience/adventure, but monetarily I'd recommend saving your money and buying a pint at the supermarket.

All of us later attended a screening of Sex & the City, which I enjoyed quite a bit, followed by some traffic incidents including a fat man in socks waddling across the street in front of an ambulance; getting stuck for an hour in crazy post-Cure concert traffic; and an Asian doctor in hairnet jogging in the middle of the road. So it was an eventful day.

For me, thus far, Scoops is still in the lead for taste, variety, and price. Stay tuned for Emily to weigh in after her excursion back east (insert jealous statements here) to visit good ol' Noho and have some Herrell's!!!

Zanzabelle
2912 Rowena Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039