The best super-premium ice cream I’ve ever had is made in California and very expensive to have shipped here to Utah. But if you are looking for a sublime experience with ice cream try any of the chocolate flavors or the brown sugar, strawberries and sour cream.
You can get it via mail order, from several stores in California, or at their scoop shop in Upland, CA (near Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga).
Dr. Bob’s Ice Cream
www.drbobsicecream.com
Almond Joy, Cherry Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Almond Crunch, Chocolate Marshmallow, Cookie Dough, and Peach. Those are the six flavors that we’ve tried from a local ice cream maker that I stumbled across awhile back. I first read about them on the website of a local pizza place that features their ice creams for dessert. In searching around for more information about the company I found out that their factory is near downtown Salt Lake and they have a factory store, which all happens to be on the way home from work for me.
The factory is pretty non-descript with a small reception area in front which has several freezers and a chalk board listing the current available flavors. They have their ice cream in pints, gallons and three gallon containers. This is not a scoop shop though, so plan on taking some pints home with you if you get it at their factory. There are also several stores along the Wasatch Front that carry their pints. The only place I have actually seen it myself is at the Emigration Market in Salt Lake.
Overall the ice cream is good and made without a long list of artificial or unrecognizable ingredients, which in my opinion is important. When it comes to national brands of ice cream I often go for Haagen-Dazs whose ingredient list is almost always filled with things you recognize like cream, milk and sugar. Or if I just need vanilla a good alternative is the Kirkland brand from Costco. It is actually made with really good ingredients and is some of the best pure vanilla ice cream I’ve found. Back to Spotted Dog though…overall good ice cream, but the individual flavors vary in how good they are. On our first visit I bought Cherry Chocolate Chip, Peach, and Chocolate Almond Chip. My brother bought their Almond Joy.
Chocolate Almond Chip – a chocolate ice cream with almonds and chocolate chips. This one was good one. The chocolate ice cream had a good flavor and texture and there was a nice amount of almonds and chocolate chips mixed in.
Cherry Chocolate Chip – we were told a cherry ice cream with cherries and chocolate chips. My wife liked it, although her one criticism was not enough stuff in it, e.g. the cherries and chocolate chips were few and far between. As for me, I stopped after a couple bites because, one, I didn’t taste or see any cherries. And there just wasn’t very many chocolate chips.
Peach – this one had a nice color. And some peach flavor, but what flavor there was was weak and somewhat artificial tasting. And it looked like there was some attempt to include some chunks of peaches, but it was either a failed attempt to puree all the peach into the mix to make a smooth ice cream or else the chunks were so small they shouldn’t have bothered including them.
Almond Joy – I didn’t personally try this one, but it got rave reviews from my brother and his wife. They opened the night we bought it (after their kids had gone to bed) and finished off the whole pint between the two of them.
Based on the strength of the Chocolate Almond and the Almond Joy we made another visit a week or so later. This time I bought a pint of their cookie dough and my brother bought a pint of their chocolate marshmallow.
Cookie Dough – the same complaint as before, just not enough of the mix-in — in this case cookie dough. You had to dig to find the chunks of cookie dough. It was more like vanilla ice cream with a little bit of cookie dough in it, not cookie dough ice cream.
Chocolate Marshmallow – they told us this one was chocolate ice cream with marshmallows and a marshmallow ribbon swirled in. It was more of a good sales job than good ice cream. The marshmallows were minimal and there was no swirl at all.
I like to see places like Spotted Dog making quality food, especially since they are local. But when you position yourself as a premimum product and charge a premium price, I am disappointed when a product skimps on quality or in this case the quantity of the mix-ins in their ice cream. Lots of work for a product that isn’t quite as good as it could be.
Overall, you’ll find that it’s hit and miss, when they are good they are quite good but when they miss it can be disappointing.
Spotted Dog Creamery
2980 South State Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
This entry is a little late in posting as we visited Cafe Pierpont about a week ago. I had to squeeze a short trip to Disneyland in during the last half of last week and I didn’t get the review written before I left.
Chimichangas and you might even say most mexican food is all about the textures. The crunch of a fried tortilla offset by the creaminess of refried beans or the give of rice cooked and seasoned. One thing that my brother and I spend a lot time discussing whenever we are evaluating a new chimichanga is whether or not they got the texture right. And by texture, this means does the crunch of the fried tortilla encasing all the ingredients hold up until it reaches us, ready to be consumed.
There are several factors that can make or break the crunch of a chimichanga. In no particular order:
So, for Cafe Pierpont. It takes over as the best one thus far. Thus, our current list is as follows: 1) Cafe Pierpont 2) Bajio 3) Su Casa. Of course this list is by no means complete as there are other places we still need to visit, but it is the current standing.
We had the chicken chimi at Cafe Pierpont and it was a traditional chicken chimi. Seasoned chicken, rolled in a flour tortilla and fried. It was served with some expected sides and sitting in a pool of sauce, which is one to limit loss of crunch between fryer and table. We both agreed that their chimi could have used more time in the fryer to give it some more crunch, but it was still very good. Other highlights were some complementary tortilla chips and a salsa bar in the middle of the restaurant which offered five different salsas that you served yourself. Interestingly, the salsa they gave us with the chips was not one of the selections on salsa bar.
Overall a good experience. Although, the one comment I made to my brother as we were finishing up. Even though it was good, the food was not something that I will be craving. The next time someone asks me where to go for good mexican it would be on the list, but there isn’t one dish there that makes me want to eat there again. The only comparison I can think of is the shrimp tacos at Bajio. Every once in awhile, I just need to have the shrimp tacos from Bajio because they are so good. Not that kind of experience at Cafe Pierpont.
Cafe Pierpont
122 Pierpoint Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT
801-364-1222
In downtown Salt Lake and known for its traditional German food. It has been years since I went there, and now that I work close by, it’s on my list to try again. This entry will make sure I don’t forget about it.
Siegfried’s Delicatessen
20 W 200 S
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Anyone that regularly reads this site can tell that there are some key themes that are continually repeated — food, London. Maybe that is it. Just food and London. Not necessarily in that order and definitely not food in London or London food. I’d be quite hungry all the time and have little to write if it was all about food in London. But if you ever do find yourself in London make sure that you stop at Pret A Manger to eat. They are hard to miss and definitely worth a visit, I’ll add a separate entry for that later.
But today, the focus is pizza. A while back my brother and I went to a place here in Salt Lake called ESTE pizza and were impressed with its offering in the universe of Utah pizza.
At the time we went there on the recommendation of one my co-workers who is native of New York and he thought it was one of the better attempts by places here in Utah to recreate a NY-style pizza. After I went there, the same co-worked said that Big Apple was the other place that he and his wife frequented to get their NY pizza fix between visits home.
So off we went again to visit Big Apple Pizza. The environment is totally utilitarian, with rows of booths along both walls and a few tables down the middle. The ordering counter is at the back and the kitchen behind it. It also had the requisite black and white shots of famous places in NY both current and historical.
The food. We ordered our standard test pizza. Half pepperoni and half cheese. I am the one who always insists on a part of the pizza being cheese only, especially on a first visit. I always assume that if a pizza place cannot produce a good cheese pizza then it’s unlikely they will be able to produce any other variation of note. If you don’t have a good foundation (crust, sauce, cheese), everything else is for naught. Big Apple also offered up garlic knots as one of their specialties so we got an order of those.
The knots came first and were good. Totally as expected. Knots of dough with a strong douse of garlic-y, cheese-y sauce and a ramekin of pizza sauce to dip them in. The pizza followed shortly and was good solid entry in the pizza available in the greater Salt Lake area. It had all that it needed to stand up with anything we have tried thus far.
There was nothing that made it stand out though. I would go there again without hesitation. And would definitely pick it over any regional or national chain given a choice. But it doesn’t engender any cult-like feelings for me. So its on the list of places to get good pizza. But I am still in hunt of the elusive place that makes me want to drive out of my way to eat their pizza.
I’m looking forward to another visit so I can try a calzone and one of their Bender sandwiches.
Big Apple Pizzeria
2939 East 3300 South
Salt Lake City, UT
801-485-4534
7206 South 900 East
Salt Lake City, UT
801-568-9095
Another entry on my list of movies that are set in London. I was just reminded about the scenes shot up and down the Thames.
Set completely in current-day London. Another movie on my list of London movies.
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