After lunch at Bowl'd, we headed back to Berkeley for dessert from Ici Ice Cream. Resist the urge to pronounce "Ici" as "icy". I know, it's hard if you're not French because you see ice cream and instinctively want to pronounce it wrong but "ici" means "here" in French and is therefore pronounced like "easy" but with a soft "s" sound instead of a "z" sound. Or think of pronouncing it as "Eeee Ceee" Ice Cream - close enough.
When we got to Ici, the shop was pretty crowded but it appeared we came at a good time because when we drove by later on our way home, there was a line out the door and along the sidewalk. If you don't mind spending $4-5 on a scoop of ice cream (and let's be clear, I don't mind - research once again), I can understand why.
Before I get to the ice cream, I was distracted by the offerings of baked goods in the display cases. Those were a nice surprise since I thought Ici was "just" an ice cream shop. Ah, how wrong I was.
They had a surprisingly wide variety and very nice selection of different baked goods, from whole Baked Alaskas to bite-size individual desserts and little cookies. All super cute. I treated everyone for the ice cream and my niece bought me an assortment of bite-size desserts for me to try later. She knows all about my research for this blog and she wanted me to try out different options. Awww.
Now let's talk about the ice cream. According to my niece, Ici makes different flavors daily and you're allowed to ask for taste tests of up to 3 different ice creams. The helpful counter staff will ask which ones you want to try, go behind the counter, dig around the frozen ice cream vats and come back with little spoons cradling mini scoops of the taste tests you requested.
My niece asked for 3 taste tests and settled on the lavender honey. On her advice and experience, we both opted to get our scoops in the homemade waffle cones. They fill the bottom point with chocolate so no ice cream will melt out into your palm. Brilliant.
Lavender Honey |
Vanilla Fudge Salted Almond |
Cinnamon Pecan |
The bottom layer at the left of the picture below is a ginger molasses cookie that she said she'd had before and thought was "bomb" (millienial slang for "yummy-delicious"). She also chose (left to right) shortbread, coconut macaroons and Mexican wedding cakes.
I had to pace myself (freaking portion control and all that) so I consumed the treats over the next several days. They were all good. The ginger cookie had bold ginger molasses flavor like a good cookie of that kind should have. The coconut macaroons had great coconut flavor and the Mexican wedding cakes were just like the ones I make (that probably sounds vain, oh well).
Shortbread |
Mexican Wedding Cakes |
Coconut Macaroons |
Ginger Molasses Cookies |