Two is better than one!

Enjoyed a nice trip to Sweet Claude’s in Chesire this afternoon and believe you me it lived up to the hype. Maureen and I were met by our friend Jacques Gauthier and his cute little pooch Pepper. Jacques and I have been friends for almost 20 years and I have always thought of him as kind of a big brother.

Sweet Claude’s is a really pretty cool place (sorry channeling my inner Jacques). A mom and pop kind of place with homemade ice cream and frozen yogurt. Very modestly priced for large servings. All the standard flavors and then some exotic specials like spiced walnut ice cream with Oreo cookies. Fantastic!

Maureen had chocolate almond fudge yogurt on a homemade wafer cone. Jacques went old school with a root beer float with a rich vanilla ice cream and Stewarts root beer. I on the other hand started with a maple walnut kiddie serving on a wafer cone, which was gigantic by-the-way, and finished off with an espresso coffee milk shake.

Jacques’ float was delicious according to my paleontologist friend while Mighty Mo was a bit underwhelmed by her chocolate fudge yogurt cone. My maple walnut cone was packed with so many walnuts you actually had to chew each bite! Okay the milk shake was over the top, two on one day…what a little piggy Mr. White is…but that too was extremely rich and tasty too.

The moral of the story…if you’re splurging head to Sweet Claude’s for some fresh, sweet ice cream and don’t stop at one treat, go for two!

A beautiful part of Connecticut!

Located in Griswold, on the far eastern border of Connecticut with Rhode Island is a well established creamery called Buttonwood Farms. Buttonwood is known for a number of things, including a spectacular corn maze in the fall, Christmas trees in the winter and the most beautiful fields of sunflowers you will ever see.

Motivated by my friend Beth Bolen, and her hubby Kenny, we drove over to Griswold to see Buttonwood. We tried once earlier in the summer, but with the sunflowers in full bloom there wasn’t a parking space for over a mile and the ice cream line was at least 100 yards long.

Today was far more manageable on a nice September Saturday afternoon. By far this place has the most creative types of ice cream and frozen yoghurt. Homemade ice cream and waffle cones and bowls. Lots of seating, a pavilion, and a scenic farm make this a special place to visit. Proceeds from the sales of sunflowers go to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Mighty Mo had chocolate almond fudge on a sugar cone and I had my old trusty coffee milkshake. Portions are large and very reasonably priced. Multiple windows are open at any given time, and there are at least a half dozen young staff working.

Maureen’s ice cream was good, tasty, and rich in butterfat! My milkshake was one of the tastiest shakes I have had but the preparation lacked consistency…parts were very thin, parts were thick and parts were almost crystalline.

All in all I would recommend a trip to Buttonwood for any number of things but number one would be that rich butterfat ice cream.

Good to the last drop!

Scoopy Do’s is a well known seasonal ice cream place near the water in Milford. A bit difficult getting there today as they were setting up for the Milford Oysterfest but we made it. Takeout window and outside seating only but a nice place with friendly goofy staff that played along with my ice cream addiction and quest.

They serve Buck’s hard ice cream and this could be the best milkshake I have had so far. Rich, thick, creamy consistent taste that I didn’t want to end. Maureen had a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich with sweet cream (very good) and our good friend Lukasz had strawberry ice cream with bundles of strawberries on a wafer cone. I have to admit, I think I found someone who loves ice cream as much as me…what a surprise.

We had lunch here today with our good friend Lukasz Bratasz, a conservation scientist at Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. We are celebrating Lukasz’s new position at the Polish Academy of Science where he will be the new head of the Cultural Heritage Group. Congrats Lukasz! We will miss your humor, great smile, passion but most of all your friendship.

Roses are red…

Rose Orchards and Creamery in North Branford, Connecticut is a legendary spot for people on the shoreline. This is a charming place with a grill, market and ice cream shop along with a corn maze and petting zoo in the fall.

The creamery serves soft serve ice cream, both chocolate or vanilla with a variety of toppings. I had the old stand by-chocolate milkshake and Maureen had a small chocolate ice cream with chocolate “shots” on a wafer kiddie cone. Tasty, rich and creamy and reasonably priced. Staffed by a group of young, spunky girls make Rose’s a nice attraction.

Lots of improvements in recent years make this an enjoyable place to stop for a cone or shake!

Wow! Just wow!

Rarely am I surprised but today I had my socks blown off at an ice cream place in New Haven on Whitney Avenue. I feel a little guilty not reviewing Clark’s Dairy but that will come at a later time.

My dear friend Nicole suggested we check out this Thai Ice Cream place on Whitney. I was a bit skeptical at first but wow, just wow! I was intrigued the moment I walked in and saw the crazy descriptions on the wall. Still a bit skeptical but that all vanished pretty darn quickly once they started “making” our ice cream.

They offer 13 exotic creations. All are served in a cup and all concoctions are pretty unique. Prices aren’t bad and the serving is filling and a pretty darn cool way of preparing the cup.

I had the “key lime pie” while Nicole had the “I love you a latte”. The uniqueness in this place is all in the preparation of these savory, delicious treats. See pics below to get the vibe of this cool place. Dylan is behind the bar and an ice cream artist.

A fluid concoction is poured on an ultra-cold steel surface and slowly with scraping, the liquid solidifies into ice cream. The ice cream is thinned out into a square with the consistency of sugar cookies and rolled into perfection with five of these rolls put into a cup with your choice of toppings. Wow, just wow!

Thanks Nicole!

A classic, old-time drive-in…

Harry’s has been around for generations. I may have stopped here once or twice over the years but doubt I had any ice cream. It is as much a classic American drive-in as it gets…hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries and ice cream!

They serve Giffords’s hard ice cream and offer about 20 flavors in cups, wafer or sugar cones and milkshakes. I had a small coffee milkshake. The ice cream is very tasty but the shake was a bit thin. Maureen always gets something novel. She had toasted coconut on a sugar cone, which was not exactly what you would think. Vanilla ice cream with toasted coconut and mini-chocolate chips, which combined was fantastic and refreshing.

All in all a good choice for Sunday afternoon.

Kind of like the Golden Gloves in baseball.

Okay classic Connecticut franchise. Well known in the New Haven area but IMHO they generally fail to live up to the hype.

I had a coffee-chocolate milkshake and Maureen had her usual kiddie cone of chocolate soft serve with chocolate “shots”. On one hand Mo thought the soft serve was tasty whereas I found my milkshake interesting but eh…nothing special. It was thick throughout but in general lacked any flavor. Maybe it was the combo but generally I found it lacked flavor and I thought it was eh nothing special.

Prices were on the high side but not crazy high. They are located in a nicer strip mall on the Boston Post Road. Somewhat typical store front, with some nice outdoor seating.

I would equate Ashley’s to the Golden Gloves in baseball…once you win it, you win it for several years regardless of how many balls you drop! E-6 Ashley’s.

It’s all in the preparation…

Branford has lots of established ice cream places but I went to a place close to home, Thimbleberry’s which is on the dock of Stony Creek. In addition to a spectacular water view, Thimbleberry’s serves breakfast and lunch and has a nice corner designated Giffords Creamery.

There are seven or eight interesting flavors, including cups, cones and shakes. There is something on the menu called a sarsaparilla float, which I will try next time. I had an espresso coffee milkshake and Maureen had a chocolate milkshake while my father-in-law Unk DaRos bucked the establishment and had an ice cold brew. Thimbleberry’s serves Giffords ice cream which is a nice rich, full-flavor ice cream product.

By far this is the best milkshake I have had and clearly it is all in the prep by owner Mikey Mac and his crew. Both shakes had a tasty flavor and a rich consistent thickness from start to finish! No doubt the Guida’s whole milk had much to do with the thickness. I would give this shake a solid five stars!

Another day, another milkshake…

I was passing through Durham today just before noon and couldn’t resist stopping at the Durham Dari Serv for another milkshake. They are celebrating their 61st year in business and a mainstay in this charming sleepy little town. This is a seasonal place but one of my favorites in the state. Been coming here for 25 years

I was second in line for the 12:00 noon opening and within ten minutes there was a line 15 deep. They make their own ice cream and it is delicious! Both hard ice cream, soft serve and frozen yogurt. Lots of flavors but I went with my second coffee milkshake with tablespoon of peanut butter this weekend, which was thick and creamy as usual. Probably a bit more peanut butter for my tastebuds but still incredible.

Nothing like an afternoon ice cream break!

We took a nice afternoon break and visited B and B Flower Shop to meet our good friends from work, Bonnie and Rich Mahmood. Located on the south side of West Haven, B and B has a nice ice cream shop surrounded by a horse barn, a small paddock for goats and donkeys, a veggie stand, horses and farm equipment. Overall a very charming and pleasant surprise.

The ice cream stand serves Buck’s French ice cream, which is a very nice, rich product. They have a variety of flavors and some interesting toppings. All hard ice cream and yogurt products in traditional wafer and sugar cones, cups, milk shakes, malts and floats. The regulars post their favorite concoctions on the wall for all to see. I had a coffee milkshake with a tablespoon of peanut butter…yum! Magnificent! Others had cones with a variety of flavors and toppings including chocolate “shots” (more on that later).

All things considered, I think this could be a nice place for a break this summer.

Here come the New Britain Bees!

Last night Maureen and I spent the evening with her cousins in New Britain to see a New Britain Bees minor league baseball game. No game is complete without a variety of baseball treats such as hot dogs, cheeseburgers, popcorn, peanuts, pretzels, beer and ice cream. Only one ice cream option is available at the Bees Stadium, Dippin Dots Ice Cream. Believe it or not Dippin Dots was founded in Paducah, Kentucky and I am pretty sure I visited the original store about 15 years ago.

Dippin Dots is an interesting concoction of a flash-frozen ice cream mix in liquid nitrogen, which actually makes an interesting combination of granular ice cream pellets. There are a number of flavors but our gang was split between chocolate and rainbow. The rainbow was both sweet and tart creating a refreshing flavor on a warm, humid night. The chocolate didn’t really work in pellets form, at least according to my chocolate connoisseur wife Maureen but the boys seemed to devour it.

Unfortunately the Bees lost the game but a good time was had by all and it was fun to hang out with Maureen’s cousin Kim and Maureen’s younger cousins who are all unique in their own ways. We had the best seats in the house…right behind home plate with the scouts. Hunter is a true-blue baseball fanatic (good boy) and a quiet student of the game. Kaylyn is bright and observant of everything going on around her and Anthony is introspective and full of energy. And then there is Jordan…no words can describe Jordy but he is a cute, intelligent lad with a big heart. Thanks for humoring me guys and going to a game. Next year we’ll do it again.

Next up West Haven.

Adequate but not top notch…

In honor of national ice cream day, but seriously every day is national ice cream day, we took Marve and Sheldon (Cooper White) out for ice cream today. We traveled to our neighboring town Deep River, which is nicely located on the southern part of the Connecticut River.

We visited the Main Street Sweet Shoppe, which has the appearance of an old town ice cream shop in the center of Deep River. Excellent selection of hard ice cream and traditional soft serve ice milk. They have three brands of hard ice cream, Buck, Giffords and Ashbury. Have to admit I haven’t heard of Ashbury and am wondering if the kid misspoke.

Maureen had a generous serving of soft chocolate with chocolate sprinkles (are you detecting a trend here) and thought it almost tasted like traditional hard ice cream. I on the other hand had the old faithful chocolate milk shake, which was flavorful but lacked consistency in the viscosity of the shake…some parts very thin and watery, other parts too thick for the straw which only suggests to me it’s all in the preparation.

The Main Street Sweet shoppe gets props for the diversity of ice cream flavors and three species of this frozen dessert, but loses points for poor preparation. As my friend Cope MacClintock would say, adequate but not top notch.

No great “shakes” in Lisboa!

Back from Lisbon with Maureen and my niece Jackie. Great trip and here is a quick review of the ice cream in Portugal.

Surprisingly no great “shakes” or ice cream, gelato, or frozen yogurt in Lisbon. These ice cream stands (see picture below) are everywhere and they sell a variety of “Ben & Jerry” flavor hard ice cream, popsicles, fudge bars, and drum sticks.

Prices in general were pretty inexpensive, you could get a cup of Ben & Jerry’s for 2 Euros at these stands. Most restaurants had chocolate or vanilla gelato on the dessert menu but hard to pass up those tasty, delicious pastries.

In fact one of the best ice creams I had was on the United flight back…a Belgian chocolate truffle.

Welcome Peyton…or whatever we call you!

It’s a winner…thank you Beth Bolen for suggesting Salem Valley Farms Ice Cream as a perfect Friday night activity. Stopped on the way home from East Haddam, where Marvin and I met our new doggie Peyton (soon to be Melvin, Sheldon, or Wilson). Unfortunately Mighty Mo couldn’t join us.

The best ice cream we have had so far and pretty sure it is the 16% butterfat that gave it that insane, rich, dreamy taste! A wide range of flavors and options. Hard and soft-serve available, but seriously why would you have the soft serve. I had a coffee milkshake that was the best taste I have had so far, while Marve enjoyed what was left of a cup of rich, dense vanilla (remember that butterfat!).

This place is out in the middle of no where but worth the drive. Expect a line. There were five cars in the parking lot when we arrived and 20 by the time we left. The last pic here is our new boy…time to fatten him up and I know where to go!

A family fun kind of place…

A pleasant surprise awaits you in Waterford at the Cowlick Creamery on the Boston Post Road. Fun place with outside seating area for families and lots of play areas for kids and private parties.

Seasonal place with a mixed selection of hard ice and soft ice cream, frozen yogurt and Italian ice. Had the old standby chocolate milk shake and Maureen had a small cup of soft chocolate ice milk with chocolate “shots”.

Hershey’s Hard ice cream and soft ice milk was really nothing special, and somewhat limited yogurt selections but the diversity was impressive. Nice, open store with some goofy decorations and lots of seating inside and a large picnic make this a must stop for families.