So... life's been busy, full of family and eating out so I haven't been in the kitchen much this week. Brett's sister Megan and her husband Dave were in town this past weekend and we had a blast spending time together just the four of us. Megan and Dave are thinking of opening up an ice cream shop in Houston, Texas, so for our time together we thought it would be fun to take them New York City Ice Cream Tour around the city. The first full day they were here we walked 10 miles total going from one shop to the next! We all slept like a rock that night and I guess it helped balance out all the ice cream we sampled.
Now most of you are fully aware that I don't eat dairy, but a lot of the shops we went to offered dairy-free ice cream, so I thought it'd be fun to share our findings! And for those of you who are able to have dairy, you'll now have some ideas of good ice cream shops to visit if you ever find yourself in NYC.
Ample Hills Creamery
Brett and I had been to Ample Hills Creamery before, but Megan and Dave had never seen the shop in person. It's a colorful, family friendly shop with a kid's play corner and a large screen where they play movies at night occasionally. They have the most unique flavors, one of which is called The Munchies (pictured above) that is a vanilla based ice cream with ritz crackers, potato chips, pretzels and M&Ms stirred in. Dave got a small scoop of that and thoroughly enjoyed it.
For a dairy-free option they have an amazing Coconut Fudge Sorbet that is incredibly creamy and rich. On the rare occasion I get it, I'll order it on their pretzel cone for the most amazing, sweet and salty combination. It's a must try for any of you vegans out there!
On a side note, how funny is the last picture in that collage? It's so amazing how far we've come in our knowledge of nutrition. I don't think we'd be promoting ice cream as a good source of calcium these days...at least I hope not. Let's just stick with dark, leafy greens, shall we?
Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream
If you're looking for unique flavors, Morgenstern's is a good choice. Szechuan Peppercorn, Burnt Honey Vanilla, and Vietnamese Coffee are a couple of the unique flavors on their menu. They also have five sorbet flavors, one of which is a Chocolate Sorbet, which was better than I expected. I ended up getting a scoop of it with pretzels on top. It hit the spot and gave me the sugar rush I needed to fuel our walk to the next ice cream shop:)
Lulu's Sweet Apothecary Blythe Anne's
This ice cream shop serves all vegan items and was my favorite stop on our tour. The name of the shop is actually up in the air. It used to be called Lulu's Sweet Apothecary, then Blythe Anne's, and now it currently has no name. When we got to the door (there was no sign) the shop looked closed as there were barely any lights on and we couldn't see anyone inside. Dave decided to try the door and to our surprise it opened. A worker with the best smile walked to the front and welcomed us. After a few samples we decided on two flavors: Rocky Road and Cookies and Cream. Their ice cream is either cashew milk or coconut milk based. It tastes just like regular dairy ice cream and they don't skimp on the mix-ins, which is a high priority for me! We all loved these two flavors and I'm hoping to go back at least one more time for a brownie sunday!
Davey's Ice Cream
The workers at Davey's Ice Cream were super friendly, funny and easy to talk to. Megan and Dave were able to talk with the owner who actually went to the same ice cream class that Megan recently attended. He quit his previous job to open up this ice cream shop and it has been open for a little over a year. They don't serve a large amount of flavors, but Megan ended up getting their Pistachio Ice Cream and loved it!
Odd Fellows
Odd Fellows only serves 1 non-dairy option each day, but they do have some creative, unique flavors that sound amazing! We only stopped in for a few seconds, but some of the flavors that stood out to me were the Caramalized Onion, Mocha Coffee Crunch and Burnt Marshmallow.
Our ice cream tour has now ended...
...now I'm going to eat some kale.
Make your own vegan ice cream!
Want to make your own vegan ice cream? Try my Best Vegan Ice Cream Recipe (3 Ingredients & No-Churn!)
Miss Polkadot says
Okay, now I'm officially even more jealous of my sister flying to New York soon :(. Ice cream heaven right there. Most people give me strange looks when I say I'm neither a cake nor cookie person. For me it's chocolate or ice cream so this tour would have been perfection for me.
The most unique flavour I had so far was at a largely vegan ice cream store and called 'Rübli-Kokos' which would roughly translate to carrot-coconut. Fingers crossed they'll offer that one again this year.
Faith says
Oh man, and you're not coming! We could eat ice cream together:) I grew up eating huge bowls of ice cream every night so I guess you could say I'm an ice cream person too...at least now it's a lot healthier!! Carrot coconut ice cream sound delicious!
Liv @ Healthy Liv says
YUM, that's such a fun way to explore the city! I And that's exciting that some of them had some dairy-free options for you.
I love cookie dough & chocolate/peanut butter ice cream <3
Faith says
Agreed! Ice cream shops were the perfect pit stops with all the walking we did:)
And I love those two flavors too...anything with peanut butter really!