Coldstone
 

In the ice cream world, there are grocery store ice cream (of which my favorite brand is Ben and Jerrys) and there is "Go out and get it" ice cream.

There is a Coldstone down the street from work. I went for the first time 4 weeks ago. Now I go once a week (on Sundays) and have ice cream for lunch.

Coldstone blows 31 flavors away.

Does anyone else know a chain that is better?

We had a local ice cream shoppe here that was similar to coldstone - they added the stuff into the ice cream flavor of your choice - and they had very interesting flavors. It was called the Inside Scoop and it was great. Then Coldstone came and ran them out of town.

Coldstone is good... but that infernal singing. Just give me my damn ice cream and let me eat in silence.

My favorite - mocha with brownie.

As far as the quality of the ice cream itself goes, Baskin-Robbins does hold its own with Cold Stone Creamery, Maggie Moo's, etc. I would never turn my nose up at a scoop of Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter & Chocolate or Chocolate Fudge.

(Although the Baskin-Robbins I stopped at a couple of weekends ago lost some cool points when they had ~16-20 flavors available. HELLO? Thirty-fucking-ONE. It's only your goddamned TRADEMARK.)

You go to Cold Stone for the mix-ins, obviously, and while they are good, I find them fairly interchangeable with Maggie Moo's and a lot of local ice cream parlors that do the same thing, like the Ice Cream Co. or the late lamented Hillary's in West Chester. Not bad at all, but not head-and-shoulders above everyone else, either.

A good banana ice cream is better than a good anything else. I do mine with fudge sauce.

ew. banana flavored everything is nasty. except bananas. go figure.

I like banana malts....heavy on the malt. Yummm! Until my tummy starts realizing all the dairy I dumped into it. Then its UGGGHH.

I don't go out for icecream anymore. I go for gellato. Upstate NY has a large Italian-American community so we have quite a few gellaterias.

Gellato > _any_ ice cream.

There is one ice cream place I like but I've only seen them in missouri & illinois. They're called Sheriden's Frozen Custard.

totally with you on that one. although if it's blended in, like a banana and mango smoothie, it's not so bad.

A friend of mine swears that there is nothing better than Coldstone's cake batter ice cream. I haven't tried it yet though. I forget everytime we're in KoP, too focused on Blue Pacific sushi I guess.

It does taste like cake batter... but it's scary. I would rather eat cake batter than that ice cream. The ice cream is too weird.

I know that probably makes no sense.

Coldstone is good, but there is a place called Marble Slab that is the same thing, but has a much bigger selection of ice cream flavors.

Cheesecake ice cream with graham crackers, strawberries and bananas in it... :drool:

But I was raised on Baskin Robbins, so it’s still one of my favorites. One scoop Chocolate Fudge ice cream (sweet chocolaty-ness) and one scoop Daiquiri Ice (sour limey-ness).

I just had a berry cheesecake selection from coldstone yesterday....

Cheesecake Ice Cream, graham cracker, strawbs, bluebs, raspbs.

YUM!

At coldstone my wife absolutely lives for the Cake Batter ice cream. i usually get the Chocolate Chip Cookie dough, but their malts are great as well. i like coldstone because they are always, always friendly and generous with their servings.

maggie moo? not so much. just didn't like the whole experience and i don't know why.

Marble slab? very good. probably a little better in the products department than coldstone, but i like the coldstone experience better. they are just a lot friendlier.

now i may have to head over there for lunch. :biggrin:

Daquiri Ice... Day-YUM that's good eating!!

...Slightly off topic...

Hagen-Daz used to have a sorbet flavor called Cassis. Am I the only one that remembers this? If yes, I'll just quit here because it transcends words. Essence of black currants, prepared in heaven, this is what would have been the dessert course for the Last Supper, had there been any justice at all. Anyone?

My personal favorite is tempura, or fried, ice cream at Japanese joints. So damn good. And damn near impossible to do at home (can be purchased premade and frozen at some chinese groceries).

Are there other big chains aside from Friendly's, DQ, Baskins and Coldstone? None seem to come to mind.

For anyone in Boston or NYC, there is Emack & Bolio's, which is consistently solid across all of its flavors. Unfortunately, they use a lot of chocolate chips in many flavors, and I'm not a huge fan of those. I usually get "Grasshopper Pie": mint cookies 'n cream.

If you are ever in St. Louis go to Ted Drew's frozen custard. This stuff is so rich it could buy out Bill Gates and have change left over. :p