John L.
Yelp
Interested in some super premium ice cream (aka ultra premium at this business)? Super premium, premium, standard, and economy are marketing terms used by ice cream makers. The FDA rules (in general) for calling a frozen dairy product ice cream are: 1) it must have at least 10% dairy milkfat. 2) it must weigh at least 4.5 lbs per gallon. 3) the overrun cannot exceed 100%. Super means the ice cream has at least 15% milkfat and less than 50% overun. Each ice cream company has their own definition, but they are similar. Overrun is the percentage of air in the ice cream compared to the starting materials. E.g. If you start with 1 quart of ice cream ingredients and mix it until it expands to 2 quarts, you will have 100% overrun. More milkfat and less overrun makes ice cream thicker, richer, creamier, and smoother. So, my wife and I came here to try their super premium ice cream and sorbet. They have 17% milkfat in their ice cream. We sampled 5 items and bought 4.
1) Pumpkin milkshake
It tasted like pumpkin pie with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. No noticeable clove flavor, which was fine with me. It was thick, creamy, and rich while still being easy to drink through a straw. It had a smooth sweetness that was just right. A great milkshake if you love pumpkin pie! The pumpkin ice cream was smooth, rich, and creamy with a great pumpkin pie flavor. It was the best tasting out of the 5 we tried. That's why we picked it for the milkshake.
2) Peanut Butter
It had a strong roasted peanut flavor with a moderate sweetness level. The flavor was excellent, but the texture was not right. The ice cream had ice crystals throughout, not just the surface. I hope this was a production error and not the norm. Iciness is not acceptable at $9.25 per pint.
3) Gingersnap
It had finely crushed gingersnap cookies in it. It tasted like gingersnap cookies with a strong ginger flavor. It was smooth, rich, and creamy. There were 2 problems: it melted very quickly and the ginger flavor was too strong. Less ginger and a touch more molasses would have made it great tasting. Ironically, molasses makes ice cream softer and melt faster. My photo shows the amount of melting that occurred in less than a minute after scooping it out of the container. I can imagine the mess on a hot day while eating this from a cone. You have to eat this very quickly if you don't want to drink it. This is inconsiderate to the customer.
4) Mango sorbet
This had a natural mango flavor with a good amount of sweetness, but not too much. There were bits of mango in it which added some tanginess. It was thick and smooth with no iciness. This was fruity and refreshing!
The service was informative, helpful, and friendly. They let you sample as many as you like. There were only 12 flavors available on our visit. They usually have more, but supplies had not been delivered. There are 2 freezers with pints of ice cream and sorbet for sale. The store was clean. They had 7 tables with chairs and counter seating. There are no restrooms for customers. I found the sorbet to be one of the best around DC. Some of the ice cream was disappointing in either taste or texture. The iciness in the peanut butter ice cream was probably due to a mistake that was made during the production. They need to check each batch of ice cream before release. The incredibly rapid melting of the Gingersnap ice cream will turn people off. That's easily fixable. Taste is subjective. I just think it's better to have less ginger as opposed to more. The pumpkin ice cream was an excellent example of super premium ice cream. We will return to try other flavors and give the peanut butter ice cream another try.