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
www.spotteddogcreamery.com
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