In honor of The Pint Shop by the creators of the Museum of Ice Cream, which opens this week, here's a look back at some of our favorite ice cream moments. There's always room for ice cream in our books. Curious G has been enjoying it since her first mini cone at A La Mode Shoppe. She has since graduated to adult sized scoops, and tried a spectrum of different flavors.
This one takes us to San Francisco, where the Garden Creamery flavors are right up my alley (Mango sticky rice, ube pandan, Japanese milk coffee just to name a few flavors). Curious G has tears in her eyes in this pic because she had just used them to con Daddy into trading his ample scoop of mango sticky rice for her empty cone. If you are ever in the Mission District, a stop here is in order. I hear they have churro cones too. It's a great place to have dessert after brunch at nearby Mission favorite, Lolo.
Curious G loves the Milk Money (toasted milk, chocolate ganache and sea salt) and I love the 9 AM (Vietnamese coffee, donut truffle) as well as their other more exotic flavors that they change up regularly. Here, Curious G and her pal are digging into an ice cream sandwich built on top of sliced doughnuts. After a few hours playing at nearby Seward Park Playground, a hearty snack was in order.
When that craving hits for good old fashioned soft serve, don't forget about the classic Dairy Queen. I love a big vanilla cone dipped in the cherry shell with a side of sprinkles to mix in after I've inhaled the shell (and to maybe drink a little when nobody's looking). Curious G likes a variation of my favorite with a chocolate shell. Daddy always gets a Reese's Pieces Blizzard. These particular treats, as pictured, were a welcome respite after walking around Union Square Farmer's Market in the hottest NYC month of August.
While we love the delicious soft serve and scooped flavors offered at Eggloo, we love the delicious Hong Kong style waffle cone (original, chocolate, or green tea flavored) just as much. Eggloo made it to our summer highlight reel from last year because there's one conveniently located across the street from Tompkins Square Park, where this pic was snapped. Curious G devoured this colossal cone on her way to the park, ate some of our friend's strawberry cheesecake ice cream on a park bench, then happily ran off to the playground.
This is the place where you can make your own ice cream flavor! We celebrated Curious G's last birthday here with a vanilla base mixed with peanut butter sauce, marshmallows and strawberries. Read more about it in our Yum and Yummer restaurant guide. In this pic, Curious G was pondering life after 2. It involves a lot more ice cream. LOL
After Curious G's first spin on the Seaglass Carousel and her visit to the Imagination Playground, we took her to the South Street Seaport Smorgasburg (now closed), and had a birthday cake scoop drizzled with green tea and condensed milk with mochi in a waffle cone. If you find yourself in Citi Field, Williamsburg, or at Governor's Ball this summer, try one of these colorful concoctions.
After a few hours in the Brooklyn Museum we headed here. Shortly after this pic was snapped, Curious G brought her ice cream on over the little play area you see in the background and played "school" with some other kids. The play area and the garden in the back can make this ice cream experience an ice cream event. We love the Blue Marble (peanut butter and marshmallow), green tea, butter pecan, birthday cake, strawberry, and bread and roses (shortbread in rose tinged ice cream) flavors. We have also had Blue Marble on Governor's Island, Smorgasburg, and across from Pier 25.
Schnippers is a good stop for a quick lunch if you are in the midtown area and craving diner classics. It's also one of the only spots in that immediate area that serves ice cream. Desperate for some ice cream after visiting Daddy at the office one day, this PBJ milkshake hit the spot (hence, Curious G's unbridled excitement here).
Soft Swerve has been my favorite soft serve spot since it opened last year. I am obsessed with the black sesame matcha swirl with condensed milk and freeze dried strawberries. Collectively, as a family, we all like the swirl topped with mochi and toffee chips too. Before this pic was snapped, we had just eaten pre supper dessert at Petee's Pie at Canal Street Market and kaya toast and Nasi Lemak at Kopitiam before stopping in Soft Swerve for our faves. The proverbial, "There's always room for ice cream" rang true in this scenario.
Snow Days serves our favorite shaved cream (like a slushy ice cream) in the city. The enormous bowls are family sized enough for sharing, but totally doable as a personal serving as well. After picking your flavors (we usually get black sesame and green tea; old habits die hard, but there are other yummy flavors as well like mint oreo and chocolate), you pick toppings (matcha brownie and mochi, please!) and a free "drizzle" (once again, we go with condensed milk but you can get more conventional ones like caramel, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce). On this particular evening, when we shot this pic, we had ducked into Snow Days to dodge a sudden downpour, after dining at Rai Rai Ken across the street.
Between Snow Days and Bing Box, we prefer Snow Days for shaved cream, but Bing Box has fun, fruity flavors that we crave once in a while. The honeydew option, pictured here, is honeydew shaved cream with litchi topping, fruity pebbles mixed in, a waffle cookie, and condensed milk. We added pineapple to ours and snapped this pic after a hot day playing in Tompkins Square Park. Ice cream and cold drinks are served here as well.
Sprinkles may be famous for their cupcake ATM, but we like to stop into their ice cream shop on Lexington Avenue regularly for their malted milk chocolate and the salty caramel scoops. Now, I rarely get chocolate ice cream, but this is my favorite chocolate ice cream ever. We had just picnicked in Sheep's Meadow and experienced the Greek Heritage parade up close while crossing Fifth Avenue, before running to Sprinkles for a malted milk chocolate fix in this pic. Curious G was about to wolf down her lemon meringue scoop.
Bi-Rite is a must stop on the way to Dolores Mission Park, one of our favorite parks in California. Their organic hand crafted ice cream can draw long lines, but luckily we arrived to an almost empty shop after indulging in a leisurely lunch at Hog Island Oyster Co. in the Ferry Building. In this pic, Curious G may have been trying to wash away the brininess of her first oyster with some lavender vanilla with Sonoma honey.
This was taken in the ice cream parlor, where it all began. When Curious G was a little over a year old, I took her to a cones and crafts class here, where the kids all got free mini cones after making paper plate sea creatures. Curious G had her first mini scoop of vanilla, and the rest is history (that you can kind of see on this list). This pic was taken about half a year later, and she's eating mango sorbet. After she finished her cone she partook in some arts and crafts and took some fun photo booth pics with her buddy. We have been to so many fun classes and events (like move night, which made it to our summer highlight post) here in the past few years, and we also like to just come in for ice cream and browse the cute boutique items. My favorite flavor here is Partly Cloudy (blue cotton candy with mini marshmallows), and I love the rainbow sprinkle covered ice cream bars that they sell boxes of in the shop.