Posted August 10th, 2009 by Meg
Bi-Rite Creamery is:
- the ice cream shop to the amazing Bi-Rite Market
- organic and local ingredients
- cups and spoons are biodegradable
- tastes done with silver spoons
- made of Strauss Family Dairy
- rarely more than 5 ingredients (nothing artificial)
- daily changing, creative flavors
- delicious
Clockwise from top left: Vanilla Lavender (honey and lavender freshly gathered from nearby Mint Hill), Salted Caramel, Coffee Toffee (made with local Ritual coffee beans), and Creme Fraiche. All were outstanding, but I fell in love with the Creme Fraiche. Yum.
Bi-Rite Creamery
3692 18th St, San Francisco, CA
(415) 626-5600
Posted July 20th, 2009 by Meg
This past week my boyfriend and I went out for dinner at the always satisfying restaurant Blue Plate. It has become a safety restaurant for us. It’s not too expensive, it’s not too far, and it’s not a Mexican restaurant. This tiny little nook on Montana raises the bar for comfort food. Unlike most restaurants that offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everything I’ve tried on the Blue Plate menu has been delicious and I always leave satisfied. This time around I ordered:
Matzo Ball Soup - Simple and delicious. It came with oyster crackers.
Chicken Chow Salad - I love this salad. Romaine lettuce, grilled chicken, grilled vegetables, feta cheese, avocado, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I could eat this everyday.
Coconut Ice Cream Ball - Vanilla ice cream rolled in toasted coconut served with chocolate syrup on the side. I never enjoyed coconut until recently, but it is as if a whole new world of delicious combination possibilities has opened up. Usually when I “share” with my boyfriend, he takes a bite and puts his utensil down. This was not the case, but instead turned into a barbaric spoon scooping war. Seriously. Chocolate syrup was shed. On the table, on the plate, on the floor, and on the face. Everywhere.
Blue Plate
1415 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403-1711
(310) 260-8877
Posted October 15th, 2008 by Meg
Already on that side of town, I stopped at a place that always cheers me up. Flavors: Black Currant Sherry Wine, Mascarpone, Green Cocoa Tea (Vegan), and Strawberry Triple Sec.
Winner: Black currant sherry wine.
Posted September 29th, 2008 by Meg
If you are willing to drive and hunt for parking, Westwood is a great place for ice cream/frozen yogurt. Diddy Riese is a popular place for their inexpensive but delicious treats. You wait in line (there is more often than not going to be a line), make your order, quickly receive your order and then pay. It’s fast paced and there is very little seating in the small establishment, but that’s okay because Westwood is the type of place you can wander around. They use Dreyer’s ice cream and have the following flavors: french vanilla, cookie dough, rocky road, mint chocolate chip, strawberry, chocolate, espresso chip, butter pecan, strawberry cheesecake chunk, peanut butter cup, chocolate chip, and cookies & cream. They make fresh homemade cookies everyday: chocolate chip, chocolate chip with walnuts, oatmeal raisin walnut, sugar cinnamon, white chocolate chip, peanut butter, double chocolate with nuts, candy, chocolate with white chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia nut. For $1.50, you can purchase an ice cream sandwich. In the picture above is one chocolate chip cookie hugging peanut butter cup ice cream while reaching over for it’s dissimilar friend the chocolate white chocolate chip cookie. Best friends forever. In the picture below is on the left two chocolate chip cookies and espresso chip ice cream and on the right is two chocolate white chocolate chip cookies and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Cash Only.
Diddy Riese
926 Broxton Ave.
Westwood, CA 90024
(310) 208-0448
Posted September 26th, 2008 by Meg
One would think that by the ocean in a state where there is constant sunshine and warm weather, there would be infinite ice cream / gelato/ frozen yogurt locations. Sadly, this is not the case in Santa Monica. My roommate and I stopped at the one gelato place near the Promenade called Angelato Café. Gelato is the Italian version of ice cream but with significantly less butterfat than ice cream making it less solid and frozen (melts more quickly in your mouth), gelato is of a higher density because it is produced without the addition of air, and it is served slightly warmer (10-15 degrees less) than ice cream. All three differences gives gelato a richer, more full flavored taste than ice cream.
Angeleto offers an array of standard and unique flavors of gelato, sorbetto, tofulati, yogurt, and sugar free products. There is supposedly over 100 flavors but I was not counting. I ordered a strangely amazing combination of Green Tea Gelato and Chocolate Grand Marnier. Although this is not as good as what you would find in Italy, it is still creamy and rich. I especially enjoyed the Green Tea Gelato; it was a treat to taste this flavor in any form other than Soy Dream or Pinkberry. Cash Only.
Angelato Café
301 Arizona Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 656-9999
Posted September 6th, 2008 by Meg
Like a zombie for brains, I craved frozen yogurt last week. I did not want to go to my usual yogurt stomping grounds, but wanted to try some different “brains”. I searched online and found positive reviews for Humphrey Yogart in Sherman Oaks and that was all I needed to justify a trip to Sherman Oaks. The location is conveniently next to a Gelsons grocery store in a plaza. Although the reviews said parking was ample, the lunch rush made the lot packed. However, parking farther away is not as bad as having to find street parking, paying for parking, or waiting for someone to leave to find parking.
Humphrey’s is quite small inside and also sells sandwiches, salads, and random Atkins-friendly products (low carb, high protein of everything: bars, dressings, ice cream to go, etc). They have 3 standard “yogart” flavors: Sweet Vanilla, Tart Vanilla, and Chocolate (made from the sweet vanilla and premium chocolate). On a daily basis they rotate flavors of carbolite and sugar free. They also offer regular ice cream and a soy option. I sampled some of their carbolite yogurts, but opted for the regular nonfat yogurt. You select your ice cream “base” and choose a topping (they have over 30). The method of mixing them is not like Cold Stone’s or 21 Choices, but is all done by a machine. I chose the sweet vanilla with blueberries. The result was an icy textured refreshing delight. It is like a thicker Jamba Juice smoothie (when it is just prepared and still really icy) than it is creamy and smooth like 21 Choices. It was light and enjoyable, making me feel like I was being healthy. I would go again.
Humphrey Yogart
4574 Van Nuys Blvd
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Get Directions(818) 906-2490
Posted August 31st, 2008 by Meg
Longacre’s Modern Dairy is a family owned and operated business in Barto, Pennsylvania. In 1920, John S. Longacre would wake up, milk his dairy cattle, and then deliver the milk to neighboring towns by a horse-drawn wagon. In the 1940s, the Longacres built a dairy on the corner of their farm and started to make their own ice cream. In 1996, they went organic. Today, the dairy on the corner of the farm is the Dairy Bar, which is where my Dad, brother, and I went to have a nice ice cream treat.
The taste of their ice cream is unlike any other I have tried and ranks very high in my book. It is rich and creamy (but not sickenly rich like Coldstone’s and fresher than store quality). Also, knowing that it is organic
makes it taste even more delightful. On the wall there is a long list of flavors (probably over 30) that makes it incredibly hard to choose just one.I wanted to order the Garbage Sundae, a combination of 10 flavors and 10 toppings. Instead, I ordered the large cup of 3 flavors: Cocoanut Custard*, Banana, and Cake batter. Even though I am not a huge fan of cocoanut, I do love custard ice cream. The cocoanut custard is egg custard flavored ice cream with shredded cocoanut throughout. The banana ice cream is made with real bananas (helping me reach my recommend daily amount of fruit). My favorite was the cake batter. I could eat this flavor all day. It was sweeter than the other two flavors in my cup, for obvious reasons. Across the board, the flavors were fresh, creamy, and matched up to their flavor name perfectly. I highly recommend trying it out. Even if you are not in the mood for ice cream, I encourage buying your local milk here. The nonfat milk tastes richer and fresher than the milk you buy at the store and it’s organic!
*I know how to spell coconut. However, Longacre’s spells it “cocoanut.”
Longacre’s Modern Dairy
1445 Route 100
Barto, PA 19504
Get Directions(610) 845-7551
