Adequate but not top notch!

The Pattaconk Creamery is located on Main Street in the quaint downtown section of Chester, next to none other than the Pattaconk Bar and Grill. They serve Hershey’s ice cream, which is good but nothing special.

Nice kids working the window. Numerous flavors, cones, cups and shakes. I had a coffee milkshake, which was actually pretty good…tasted like it had a nutty flavor.

Next door the bar and grill was hopping with a lively crowd out on the sidewalk enjoying an early summer, Sunday night. As always Marvin was a hit with the locals who enjoyed the big galoot.

Eight is great, eight is great!

Visited James Pharmacy in Old Saybrook tonight with Maureen. Have wanted to check this place out for awhile and well worth the trip. Beautiful setting in a historic building just off Main Street. James is also a bed & breakfast, a bakery and a bistro which serves all three meals. Friendly, helpful staff.

But as far as ice cream, they make their own fresh gelato every day, which is rich and creamy and naturally a bit pricey. I had the coffee, which is made from their own roasted espresso beans and it was insanely good! Maureen had a Stracciatella which is a white chocolate ice cream with dark chocolate shavings, although she thought the coffee was better….and I would have to agree. Check it out!

p.s. Eight is great is a cheer we would yell for my niece Jackie when she played in her high school hockey team.

Sir yes sir!

Spent the morning at Avon Old Farms watching two friends, Jackson Colehower and Jesse Walsh, graduate and about to begin their future with appointments at West Point. Well done guys! Proud of you.

We stopped on the way back home in Haddam at a local favorite, the Dairy Barn on route 81. Have driven by this place for years but decided to stop today on a cool misty afternoon.

I had my usual chocolate milkshake and Maureen had a small chocolate soft serve with chocolate sprinkles. See below, this is anything but small! Rich flavor and thick milkshake, made with hard J Foster ice cream. Both were actually very tasty and very reasonably priced.

New weight loss program!

Since the start of this quest, I am down seven pounds so might have to start referring to this as the Ice Cream Diet!

This is a nice place, great location near the shore. Nice selection of nice hard ice cream with some unique flavors. I had a coffee milkshake which despite claiming to be “best milkshake in the state of Connecticut” it was just so so. Maureen had a sugar cone with “brownie batter” hard ice cream. Good tasty ice cream but kind of a watery milkshake so a bit disappointed.

Petersen’s also offers a grill and fried seafood so I can see coming back on another Friday night…wait that’s not on my diet!

You better give him your best, he’s on a quest!

We were one for three last night trying two places in Old Lyme that were closed. So we drove by a favorite, Scoops, of our friends Jim, Denise and Renee (AKA Gaylord) Fregeau in Essex, Connecticut. Scoops is in the Centerbrook section of Essex and a bit of a legend on the lower Connecticut Valley.

Marvelous Marvin joined us last night and he enjoyed a nice small cup of soft vanilla which he some how managed to get more in his belly than on his face. But he was happy to take a ride and humor his pop.

Maureen tried soft chocolate, covered with chocolate “shots” on a wafer cone, and I had a rich, dense chocolate milk shake. And don’t get me started on “shots”, that will be the topic of another post. Scoops serves Pralines ice cream, which is a very tasty, high quality ice cream. In fact the kid serving ice cream at the counter asked “soft or hard ice cream” and Maureen said…”you better give him your best, he’s on a quest”.

Okay it may be a mixed Dunkin/Baskin-Robbins but it’s pretty darn good ice cream. Not too mention this is the only ice cream place in Killingworth but it is about a mile from our home.

Maureen and Marve took me out for ice cream tonight, not something we do often but much appreciated. I had a chocolate milkshake, my go to choice at any ice cream shop. I liken it to a plain pizza, a standard that you can compare from one shop to the next.

 

 

 

Had dinner across the border in Westerly, RI with Maureen’s college roommate Amy and her husband Peter. Capped it off with a coffee milkshake at this old school ice cream parlor in Stonington. In addition to soft serve and hard ice cream, they had Hawaiian Shave Ice.

Ashley’s Ice Cream Shops is classic New Haven ice cream. A few shops in the area  but honestly not that impressed. I had hard coffee and my wife had chocolate soft-serve with sprinkles. Pricey but limited variety and ice cream was soft and honestly not that tasty. The soft serve machine was broken and seemed like it took forever to fix it. Staff was friendly but I think the best years of this place is behind them.

 

 

 

An oldie but a goodie. Spent a lot of time here in the 1990s when I first moved to the Shoreline. An American classic serving soft serve ice cream. Simple ” fast food” ice cream, chocolate or vanilla, dipped in chocolate, covered in sprinkles, Blizzards, milkshakes and my fave Dillybars.

We were on our way home from the movies, Super Troopers 2, and this seemed like a good place to start this quest at the DQ in Westbrook on Route 1. I always assumed Dairy Queen was a northeast chain but they were founded in Joliet, Illinois in 1952 and are operating across the States, with Texas having the most franchises (who knew?).

April 28, 2018. Prompted by my wife Maureen finishing her 50 state quest, we decided to start a new challenge. We decided we wanted to visit all 169 towns in Connecticut and check out some part of the town. Maureen decided she wants to visit a historic site or local history museum in each town. I have a more lofty and worthy goal to visit an ice cream establishment in each town. So here we go…

“When your on a quest, you need to respect the quest.” Tim White, April 19, 2018