It’s apparently quite hot here in New York City. I wouldn’t know because I refuse to leave the igloo I’ve created around my air-conditioner. But if I were to venture out onto the sizzling streets, the first thing I’d do is get me a huge bowl of mint chip ice cream… not a cone because in this weather that’s just asking for disaster.
But then I remember back to my days in servitude to the Dairy Queen and I recall that customers tastes ran from the predictable-yet-delicious (vanilla cone with chocolate sprinkles) to the bizarre (Blizzards with Nerds and hot fudge).
And there are so many more dessert options for cooling down on a hot day: Sorbet, sherbet, gelato, milk shakes, popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, shaved ice, Italian ice (or as I’ve spent decades calling it, “wudder ice”), frozen yogurt and way too many to list in a simple poll.
That’s why we want to hear from you about those frosty treats (including Frosties) that help you beat the heat.
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Hot fudge sundaes will forever be the bomb to me.
Rita’s Water Ice is my favorite by far. I’ve never been happier than when one arrived on the Upper West Side. It’s just the best by far… both for ice and for gelato. If I am slumming, then it’s a Slurpee from 7-11.
I miss Rita’s so much. I go to a place out here called Frost, but they only have the gelato – not the water ice. I used to go to Rita’s for the half water ice/half gelato thing (I’m sure it had a name, but I can’t remember it). So, so good.
I believe what Rita’s calls “gelato” is a combination of their water ice and custard (really rich soft ice cream). Its wonderful. I totally think an entrepreneur should expand this to states that aren’t familiar with “wudder ice” like California (where I grew up)
They opened a Rita’s here but it closed. We have some pretty damn good local ice cream/custard/frozen stuff places here.
Mmmm, Choco Taco……
hooray for choco tacos! (they’re being talked up later in the thread too). you know a dessert is good if you can talk yourself into going to taco bell just to snag one. this is especially true if you live in a place like arizona where it’s super easy to find tasty mexican food.
if i’m going into a place for a dessert, my wife and i have been going through a circuit of about 5 frozen yogurt places that have moved in nearby. they’re super tasty but unfortunately overrun with loud ASU students (i went to UofA and find undergrads from ASU insufferable, though grad students are cool). recently, though, i find myself liking cold stone creamery (the location in the complex where the original location was in tempe) more and more, if only because there’s always a table open outside where i can have my shiba inu with me.
Double Fudge pops, with the Chocolate-banana-chocolate layering.
And Bozo Cups!
I love Gelato from armoi d’italia at the city docks in Annapolis, MD. they had a sour cherry flavor this weekend…tasted like a cheesecake…delicious
Mmm gelato. My favorite flavor is hazelnut. I’ve never met a hazelnut gelato I did not like.
Tofutti cuties are my favorite frozen treat.
I gather ‘frozen custard’ is popular in the states, though I never worked out the real difference between it and ice-cream.
Frozen custard contains egg yolk, whereas ice cream does not. It’s typically thicker and creamier as a result.
Unless that ice cream was made with a custard base. Of course then you might retort that it is frozen custard. Ice cream is just a bit more ambiguous that way.
Frozen custard is a way to describe that the recipe includes eggs. Ice cream may or may not have eggs, but frozen custard always has eggs.
I grew up in Milwaukee, WI — and you don’t find many Ice Cream stands there, but you find a ton of Frozen Custard ones (it’s one of the few cities where it’s common though. Invented at Coney Island in NY, brought to Chicago with the World’s Fair, and spread… but there are few footholds as big as Milwaukee).
Frozen Custard contains Egg Yolks and is made slightly differently (and served at a warmer – but still frozen – temperature than Ice Cream). The texture is creamier, and I’m a big fan. Thankfully, Culvers has been expanding, and when I moved to a new state, I found Frozen Custard had already gotten here ahead of me.
If you order a Frozen Custard at an ice-cream stand in southeastern New England, you will get regular ice cream with rum flavoring and raisins and other fruit preserves in it. It’s very old-fashioned; my mom loved it, but it made me gag.
Rocket Pops, Orange Push-Ups, and something called a Fat Frog sold out of the ice cream truck.
Mojitos aren’t a bad use of ice either.
Fat Frogs were awesome.
a milkshake from Cookout…yummmmm
or a smoothie from TCBY Beriyo
it really depends on if i’m trying to be healthy or not giving a crap
oh man, I used to get their choco cherry milkshake and a large chili cheese fries about twice a month when I lived in NC … I haven’t found one in VA yet though.
I love the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bar.
But usually I make things at home. We buy bulk frozen strawberries and blueberries from Costco, and I add various things to them in our blender.
Frozen strawberries + vanilla yogurt & soy milk, walnuts, and a banana = probably the best smoothie ever.
If I’m feeling lazy, stawberries + OJ.
seconding the strawberry shortcake bar…. THEY TASTE SO GOOD IN MY MOUTH!
Bubblegum flavored slush puppies. I’m not talking Icees or any other shams like that, I’m talking real slush puppies in machines that let you add your own flavoring. They’re practically near extinct and I haven’t had one in years, but I’m sure that somewhere out there, they still exist.
OMG, I remembered growing up with Slush Puppies in Maine, It was like a shot of pure frozen sugar, so awesome!
Frosty Paw
frappes!
Also gelato and banana splits.
I do not like eating ice cream in public, though. Especially an ice cream cone or popsicle.
I’m just weird about sucking and licking in public. Or rather, the guys I know/have known are.
christ.
that sounded 78 times worse than I intended.
Bwaa ha ha ha ha ha!!!
Thanks for making me LOL at work. I needed that!
Hot food is better when the weather’s hot. 102F out and I just made a nice, steaming bowl of soup.
“Praise Alvis!”
Snow balls! With marshmallow in the middle, please
Do they have yellow snowballs? And if so, are they lemon or pineapple flavored?
They do have yellow snowballs and you CAN eat them. Just don’t eat the ones you find on the ground. They are certainly not lemon or pineapple flavored.
i’ll take a skylight with marshmallow! you must be from the mid-atlantic
From the Ice Cream Trucks/Vendors:
ChocoTaco – absolutely delish.
From the Ice Cream Stands (DQ, Netty’s, B-R):
Banana Split. – always awsome cept in a cup.
Orange sherbet with chocolate chips is primo. I wouldn’t call it my absolute favorite. Too many yummy ice creams. But on a hot day, the coolness of sherbet can’t be beat.
Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco Choco Taco
Hokey pokey ice cream – plain vanilla (no little bits of fleadirt “real fragments of vanilla bean!”), liberally studded with little chips of sponge toffee. Served in a sugar cone, please.
Bomb Pops
ICEE’s, Haagen-Daas Caramel ice cream (Dulche?), and something I haven’t found since childhood — a ‘Walk-Away Sundae’ — it was an ice-cream bar vanilla coated in chocolate, but with a cherry sherbert center. It rocked. I haven’t had one in decades, but can still taste the goodness.
Shaved ice
Cherry syrup
Figuring out how to ask in Spanish…
Oh, and there’s a place in Logansport, Indiana called Mr. Happy Burger, known as Hap’s by the locals…they have over 100 milkshakes among other things..my boyfriend used to live there and we visited his family back in March..they’re reallllly good too, and the owner is a super nice guy
I brought home one of their take-out menus to show everyone back home because of the small print and huge menu!
We used to stop at Mr. Happy Burger on the way home to Monticello after baseball games against the Berries.
Wow, I never thought I’d see the name Logansport ever again. I’ve been there and my gf’s dad worked there at a printing press, somewhere, long time ago. Nice area and nice people.
Nice people, that’s for certain.
There was a rumor about Logansport girls where I was from.
um, present company exlcuded, of course. =)
I haven’t really met a bad frozen dessert, but my current favorite is an oldie but a goodie.
Vodka over Lemon Italian Ice!!
I absolutely love ice cream with Snickers-type goodies mixed in…anything with chocolate chunks, caramel, and peanuts is a winner in my book, whether it’s a Blizzard, a Drumstick cone, or just a carton of ice cream off the shelf. That’s my pick when I’m in the mood for something indulgent.
When I want something lighter and refreshing, a lot of the local ice cream places around here do something called a “cooler”, basically vanilla soft serve blended with soda. Pepsi, ginger ale, cream soda, and (of course) root beer are all great choices for this.
Home Treat: Tofutti Cuties
When I’m out Treat: Pistachio gelato
Is it sweet? Is it cold? Does it not smell like rotting horseflesh (aka banana)? Is it sweet?
I’ll eat it.
Choice is my enemy when it comes to such a decision. However, I am partial to fruit and chocolate flavors, including combinations thereof.
Lemon Ice King of Corona! First place I ever had a chocolate chip italian ice. http://thelemonicekingofcorona.com/
Jolly Ranchers Cool Tubes http://www.bluebunny.com/Products/d/Jolly_Rancher_Cool_Tubes
I love the “Rama Lama Ding Dong” at our local malt shop. A Ding Dong topped with two scoops of cookies and cream ice cream, whipped cream, real choclate fudge, nuts, and a cherry. When my Husband and I first split one, we each kept loking at each other, feeling guilty until my husband took a bite and smiled…”I found the Dong!”
Mint chip ice cream…. not the dyed green kind, the Breyers kind that uses actual mint and no green food coloring. mmmm, mint chip.
When it comes to things you can get from the ice cream man, it’s one of those chocolate malts that come with a completely flat wooden “spoon”.
Chipwich, I could (can) eat one in a single bite.
Blended iced drinks from my local coffee shop!
I don’t know if Haagen-Dazs does them any more, but the Bailey’s Shake was just about perfection in a waxed paper cup.
My favorite, ever since I was a child, is a plain old ice cream sandwich.
I used to love Blue Bell cookies n’ cream sammies, but they discontinued them.
7 eleven Slurpee. I love those things
Those are good! A small “mom-and-pop” type store I frequented as a child used to sell slushies with soft-serve ice cream. The’d fill the cup 1/3 with the slushy, 1/3 with soft serve, then more slushy. It was to die for- never seen anybody do that since.
I didn’t care for butter pecan ice cream when I was a kid. As an adult, it’s my absolute favorite flavor. I like Dreyer’s Slow Churned Light (I know, I know) Butter Pecan ice cream. A couple of scoops in a waffle cone, and I’m in heaven.
Little Weezer Italian ices. YUMMO!
Mocha Coffee Coolata from Dunkin donuts
It’s a toss up for me between a simple chocolate soft serve and a chocolate bar dipped in chocolate and rolled in peanuts.
Frozen custard from the frozen dairy bar.
I’m more a fan of Dickies
Edy’s Fruit Bars, especially acai-blueberry.
Edy’s Fruit Bars, especially acai-blueberry.
Sorbet is the best best best frozen thing ever.
LOCO POPS! http://www.ilovelocopops.com/
LOCOPOPS!!!! They are so fantastic.
Snickers ice cream bar if its from a convenience store, the slushy/ice cream thing if it’s from dairy queen.
Frozen blueberries! I’ll eat them by the handfull.
1. Polar Cup (South Fla. in the 70′s and 80′s).
2. Phish Food
I love Rita’s… too bad they’re not out here in AZ. They’d make a killing.
I was in Cali last week and discovered a fantastic froyo chain called Yogurtland. The entire restaurant was self-served. One entire wall of the restaurant was lined with many flavored frozen yogurt dispensers, and then the customer can add as many mix-ins as they want. At the end, the cashier weighs your cup and you pay 30 cents an ounce. My first cup with cookies and cream and cheesecake froyo with cookie dough, crumbled Reese’s and Heath only ran me $3.17.