The N.C. Double Scoop Round Of 64, Flight 1: Write-Ups
Welcome to the N.C. Double Scoop’s Round of 64!Below, the commentary for Flight 1.Confused?The main NCDS page is right here, and you can find the full bracket here.
The tentative schedule as of this writing: Flight 2 goes up tomorrow, Flight 3 Saturday, Flight 4 Sunday; we begin closing flight voting on Monday in the same cascade style.
Ready to vote now?Vote here!
1 Cookie dough vs. 16 red bean. Ugh, is there even a question here? I find red bean fairly repulsive. Then again, salmonella sufferers might feel the same about cookie dough. However, since there hasn’t been a cookie dough salmonella outbreak in eons (the last food poisoning via ice cream happened with Coldstone’s cake batter), I’m putting my money on cookie dough. Raw or cooked, it’s better than beans.
8 AmeriCone Dream vs. 9 black raspberry/Oregon blackberry. Aw, poor Bunting. Her favorite is going to have quite a match against Stephen Colbert’s freedom flavor. Aside from strawberry, I’m not much for the fruit-flavored ice creams, so I gotta go with AmeriCone Dream. And not just to suck up to Colbert; I really do love the sweet taste of liberty in my mouth. Also the caramel. And waffle cone pieces.
5 Butter pecan vs. 12 orange sherbet. I don’t think I’ve eaten sherbet — which I’ve always called by its accepted variant “sherbert” — since I was at a twelve-year-old’s birthday party. When I was twelve years old. Butter pecan is another one of my adored flavors but beyond that, I think it carries more weight than sherbet.
4 Tin Roof vs. 13 peppermint. Huh, and all this time I thought Tin Roof was a sundae dreamed up by Bridgeman’s. I’m not the biggest fan of fudge swirls and chocolate-covered peanuts — do you really need both? Also, I still think it’s a sundae, not a legitimate flavor. Kicker: I simply adore peppermint — the pink kind, not green — and that’s where I’ll be voting, but I won’t be surprised if my favorite melts away in the first round.
6 Chunky Monkey vs. 11 Java Chip. Yeech. I know this is, like, the fourth best-selling flavor on the Ben & Jerry’s roster, but I hate bananas in any form or flavor and I love coffee ice cream. I’m giving it to Java Chip (especially Starbucks’s version), but I think the popularity of CM will trounce it.
3 Salted caramel vs. 14 Mexican chocolate. Talk about hitting me where I live! The first time I had a big dollop of salted caramel, I thought I had died. A perfect combo of salty and sweet that is way better than chocolate-covered pretzels. Meanwhile, the cinnamon and cayenne added to Mexi-chocolate is no snooze on the cone, either. This is a toughie, but I’ll call it for salted caramel.
7 French vanilla vs. 10 pumpkin. Ah, can pumpkin pie flavors ever reach their full flavor potential without a complementary scoop of vanilla? This is a brother-against-brother to be sure. I’m not one of those benighted folks who damns vanilla as “boring.” In fact, I judge any ice cream brand by the quality of its vanilla the same way I judge a Vietnamese restaurant by its Imperial Rolls. I yearn for both these flavors, but I think squash-phobes will throw everything in for French vanilla.
2 Chocolate vs. 15 green tea. Lord, these more esoteric flavors are going to take a beating in this round. I like green tea a heck of a lot — especially when I get it free for spending way too much money at sushi joint — but I think the peeps are going to go for chocolate.
Ready to vote?Vote now!
Tags: food Stephen Colbert
OMG, it’s tagged with Colbert alone. Win!
Perhaps it’s too early to say, but I seem to be in the underwhelming minority on EVERY FLAVOR I VOTED FOR. What does that indicate about me????
For the record, black raz/blackberry is my very favorite ice cream. My mother trucked down to Baskin Robbins three times a week for a pint of that stuff when she was pregnant with me, and I was born in March, so that’s dedication. Put on galoshes and mittens, waddle to car, drive 3/4 of a mile (it’s a small town), clamber out, purchase purple crack, lather rinse repeat. (Hi Ma!)
So I really kind of want to kill Keckler for putting it against Colbert, because that is a damn good ice cream; I have a pint in my freezer right now. And now I’ll have to resent it for killing off Big Violet. Sigh.
Chunky Monkey against Java Chip? That is just cruel, right there.
Mexican Chocolate vs. Salted Caramel is going to have to be my “Oh god WHY?!” matchup. Vosges’sRed Fire ice cream is the pinnacle of the form in the first case; Berthillon’s caramel au beurre salé is it in the second.
I went with the chocolate, but I think when I get home tonight, I’ll vote for the caramel. That’s right, people, I am jobbing the system.
Black raspberry and peppermint (or peppermint stick) were THE ice creams of my childhood. I can never find them now, but I will honor both with my vote.
I already voted, but i would be interested to know WHAT IS red bean?
I seem to have about a 50/50 split with the rest of the voters.
I live in Oregon, so that vote was a no-brainer for me. It also helps that I’ve never heard of AmeriCone Dream. Clearly, I need to watch more Colbert.
“Purple crack”! Hee. I’d love it for that name alone. But is Americone Dream not the same thing as Häagen Dazs (or however their damnable made-up name is spelled) Caramel Cone Explosion? I kind of resent Colbert for getting his mitts all over something I’d otherwise find delicious. I have a bit of an allergy to the Colbert. And yes, I’m quite aware of what a freak that makes me.
I voted for Java Chip without hesitation, and red bean untasted, because frozen banana chunks = gack, but frozen wads of raw commercial cookie dough = double gack.
Just a service announcement: if you don’t know/can’t remember what a flavor is, please Google or Wiki it. None of these flavors is so obscure that you can’t find out about it with a few keystrokes. Thanks.
The only ice cream I love more than AmeriCone Dream is mint chocolate chip, which I have loved since I was a toddler. I’m surprised that at the moment, AmeriCone Dream seems to be losing a close race. I don’t think I’ve ever had raspberry or blackberry ice cream, but vanilla ice cream topped with fresh rasp- or blackberries is wonderful.
Oh, I love black raspberry too. Sometimes those wacky B&J flavors have almost too much going on.
where can I try salted caramel? Sounds absolutely heavenly. I live in Chicago so I suspect I can get it here somewhere?
Oh, peppermint stick, the ice cream of my childhood. Could there be anything better than a scoop of peppermint stick on a warm brownie or piece of chocolate cake?
Aw, Sandman, really? That’s sad. Anyway, no, they’re not quite the same thing, and you can’t get Americone Dream in Canada anyway (consarn it!). Thanks for the head’s up on the Caramel Cone Explosion, though – may have to pick up a wee tub of that.
The match-up I’m most worried about is Chubby Hubby vs. mango. CH looks like a winner, but a couple of weeks ago I had some mango gelato in Ottawa that, no word of a lie, they will be serving in heaven.
Just voted and blackberry vs americone is TIED people. I love it.
Sars, this is an unbelievably awesome idea. The cheeses were a good idea; this is genius.
@ mev: If you live in NY, you can find the best red bean at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory in… Chinatown. All red bean ice creams are not created equal but that one’s to-die.
That being said, can anyone tell me where in the tri-state area I can lay hands on the best salted caramel?
I voted for the AmeriCone Dream, but the Edy’s version of that is light-years better.
I am very interested to try this salted caramel I am hearing so much about. It sounds excellent – I’ll have to ask my local ice cream joint when I stop in there later today.
This poll makes me sad for the extraordinarily limited Ice Cream selection we have down here. Damn you, Blue Bell!
Whenever Baskin Robbins rolls out the Pumpkin ice cream in the fall, I am THERE, buying it by the quart.
One year, we actually had that instead of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner.
@Sars: If you’re ever by chance in Cincinnati, try Graeter’s black raspberry chocolate chip (and when they say “chip,” they really mean “giant chunks.”). That stuff is heavenly. They will also ship, which costs a bomb, but Graeter’s is so worth it. http://www.graeters.com/raspberry.aspx
@ Jenn, I don’t know about Chicago but if you’re in San Francisco or St. Paul, MN, I could direct you. That said, it must be around there somewhere. Or — as I mentioned in the other comments — it’s one of Haagen-Dazs premium flavors.
Oh, for my undergrad days, when a roll of pillsbury cookie dough + fork = meal. I would sure like to shake the hand of whoever thought of putting that stuff in ice cream.
Red beans, on the other hand, are VEGETABLES and do not belong in ice cream AT ALL. SO WRONG.
…well, OK, legumes. BUT STILL.
Red bean and green tea every time. I am not a lover of plain ice creams (unlike my father, who could eat vanilla for the rest of his life), except maybe vanilla bean. I think I will lose on the majority of these.
Peanuts are legumes, no?
I keep hearing I should try the Graeter’s, but to tell you the truth, I don’t want chocolate in my black raz. I’m not really a flavor purist, either, so much as that I…don’t really want chocolate in anything, beyond some modestly-sized chips. I don’t DIS-like chocolate, but I seldom crave it, and the massive/super-rich servings like Death By Chocolate where everyone else at the table is oohing at the menu — I don’t think I’ve ever ordered one of those.
My relationship with it is like Kramer on “Seinfeld”; in a few scenes, he’s funny. Center the episode around him, I’m not into it.
Sars, I have spent 29 years explaining my feelings on chocolate to people, only to have them squint in confusion/lack of comprehension, or debate which part of female DNA I must be missing. Hereafter I will merely send them the link to the above comment. Awesome.
I’m the same way, Bunting. For me, too much chocolate surges in and beats everything else into submission.
Pumpkin is taking a beating by /French Vanilla/ … it’s not even the better of the two vanillas. I mean the classic white vanilla with vanilla bean specks, okay, I’ll give you that due solely to shear volume and ubiquity. But pumpkin pie in ice cream form should be easily trouncing the meh-ness of the eggy French Vanilla.
I’ve never actually had green tea ice cream. I’m sure I’d have voted chocolate anyway, because I love chocolate (though I do believe there’s such a thing as TOO MUCH chocolate), but I really want to try green tea ice cream.
I’ve also never had red bean, but it sounds disgusting, and cookie dough is my favorite EVER, so it wouldn’t have had a chance.
And I’ve never had salted caramel OR Mexican chocolate. My god, there’s just so much out there I’ve never had!
Oh, no, Bunting, you did NOT just compare my beloved chocolate to that creature Kramer!
Anyway, HD Caramel Cone version is based on caramel ice cream, which I think is brilliant. Salted caramel vs. Mexican chocolate was an easy choice for me, since the only version of Mexican chocolate ice cream I had featured *far* too heavy a hand with the cinnamon for my comfort. (But I didn’t know until the awesomeness that is the NC Double Scoop that Vosges made ice creams. I adore the Mesican Fire Bar and think it would make great ice cream. Thanks for the tip, bristlesage.)
I agree with your chocolate comment, too. Super-rich chocolate desserts kill me. I prefer it dark, and I like it in limited quantities in whatever I’m eating. I get overwhelmed if all I can taste is chocolate.
I’m also googling the salted caramel and planning a road trip to the States. I almost swooned. Chocolate covered pretzels are my favourite treat ever; this ice cream might just top them.
And finally, HD Caramel Cone Explosion is my sit-on-the-couch-and-eat-the-entire-container ice cream. I try to avoid it.
Yes! It’s awesome to know there are more “chocolate=alright” women out there. I always feel like I must have three heads coming out of my neck because I don’t crave and scarf down chocolate every chance I get. I’d much rather have a fruity dessert. Except there’s always something appealing about the brownie-with-vanilla-ice-cream desserts. And chocolate wrecks fruit, unless the fruit is dipped in chocolate fondue.
Many of these flavours have never passed my lips…but I’m going to have to say that vanilla is just the best, all-round flavour. Also, I don’t know if these are in the States, but the Marble Slab Creamery has a heavenly flavour called Sweet Cream (I think). It’s just sweetened ice cream, no flavours. Amazing.
I did try garlic ice cream once. It was weird.
I can’t wait to find out if Salted Caramel is sold anywhere close to Oklahoma.
Also, how is Pumpkin not winning? It’s the best ice cream flavor ever created! Well, I’ve only ever had Braum’s Pumpkin, which I guess most people who do not live in the Central part of the USA would have never tried. Maybe that’s the problem.
@ Sars, Duana, and Keckler: I read once that chocolate was the flavor used for the ice cream that had been stepped on, dirtied, or otherwise de-purified in the making back in the day (and probably still, for the cheaper ice creams), because the flavor is so intense that it could cover up the problems.
That said, while I love green tea, I had to vote for chocolate. Because it’s just that good.
I wish I could vote for pumpkin- vanilla. My favorite ice cream memories are of bricks of Dolly Madison ice cream they did a whole thing with molding/injecting, and you would cut into slices (like Neapolitan) and your slice had a picture in a different flavor in the middle. October was vanilla with a pumpkin flavored pumpkin, and November was vanilla with a pumpkin flavored turkey/
My disappointment with Haagen Daz’s overly sweet salted caramel ice cream ice cream was short-lived as I ended up buying an ice cream maker very shortly afterwards. I made David Lebovitz’s awesome salted butter caramel ice cream (http://tinyurl.com/38qwbc), and I lived happily ever after.
Jenn, I live in Chicago too, but I’m not sure where you can buy the stuff. If you live in Hyde Park, I’d be happy to give you a little jar of some next time I churn some up. And then, you will immediately buy an ice cream maker.
And red bean haters — I urge you to try it! Not bean-y at all. Delicious-y.
Give Red Bean ice cream a try…it is way better than it sounds.
I am a proud lover of the chocolate, but I do agree that chocolate + fruit is a no-no. Chocolate is one thing, fruit is another, and never shall they mix. Except in Cherry Garcia, which is, I believe, the only exception to this rule that I allow.
@Steph – there are a couple of restaurants here in The Jerz called “the Garlic Rose” and they are big fans of their garlic ice cream but it wasn’t great. It was more like frozen cream with big hunks of garlic in it. While I’m a big fan of garlic, that was just gross. Now I’ve got an ice-cream maker of my own, I’m going to be trying my hand at making my own.
As soon as I perfect Guinness ice cream, that is.
Ooo, never went so far as Guinness ice cream, but a Guinness Float is a beautiful thing (really, truly)!
Deirdre, I demand to know where you found heavenly gelato in Ottawa! I haven’t had decent gelato since I was in Italy two years ago.
Oh and you can get B&J in Montreal, just two short hours away!
GO RED BEAN!!
I like green tea, the beverage, but green tea ice cream is one of those foods that I was forced to spit out the instant it hit my tongue. It’s not as bad as vegemite, but it’s definitely in that rare family of three or so foods that just fill me with revulsion.
Red bean is soooo much better than it sounds. We were introduced to it at our favorite Japanese place, and the initial “ick” reaction gave way to, “This is some seriously good ice cream!”
Give it a shot before you knock it!
Jenn–if you want a fantastic caramel ice cream in the Chicago area, go to one of these places: http://www.algelato.com/cafe.html and get the burnt caramel gelato.
It tastes like the ice cream version of a creme brulee crust.
Red bean’s an acquired taste, but as an ice cream flavor it’s not as bad as the name would suggest. Now for mung bean ice cream, that took a leap of faith, even for someone growing up on Asian food. But when I think red bean I immediately think “dessert food,” so YMMV. I hear they sell wasabi flavored ice cream somewhere in Izu, which is just…no. On the other hand, I can’t stand wasabi; and I’ve heard of it being used in desserts. Maybe not too esoteric.
I totally want to try salted caramel; in Japan they were selling salted caramel milk, and that stuff was crazy delicious. Chocolate, well, yeah, I guess it’s OK, but once I discovered green tea, I never went back.
Has anyone tried cinnamon flavored ice cream? I read somewhere online that it was like the two hottest people you desired making out. I don’t like cinnamon candies, but if it’s like cinnamon buns, that’d be worth giving a shot.
Guinness ice cream?
Rachel: Make it, and I will buy it from you. For a lot. And we shall be best friends for ever more.
@LTG: I love green tea ice cream, but I can see where you’re going with that (I had the same reaction to Red Vines…geeyack), and green tea ice cream, when it’s bad, is really quite bad. Cheap mint chocolate chip is doable. Cheap green tea tastes like lint, and has the same consistency.
The idea of red beans (or mung beans, for that matter) in anything other than a sweet or dessert is weird to me. Red bean popsicles? Delicious. Mung bean candies? Delicious. Green tea mochi? Delicious!
I’ve had very good cinnamon ice cream, and the kind I had was cinnamony like cinnamon buns, not Red Hots. I thought it was very good, but not fabulous – I don’t go around raving to other people about it.
At last, I have a place I can come to and NOT feel like a complete and total dweeb for having taped “An Ice Cream Show” last time it aired on PBS. Now when people say “red bean,” I at least have a frame of reference for why anyone would think to put red beans in ice cream. Although I think “red bean ice cream” probably doesn’t sound nearly as appetizing as “multi-flavored snow cones with vanilla ice cream and sugared red beans hiding under the ice.”
Also, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I choose French Vanilla over ANYTHING, but ESPECIALLY not over pumpkin. I make a pumpkin ice cream pie every year at Thanksgiving, and I’ve got half a mind to hunt for some canned pumpkin and make one of those pies right now!