Ici

Up on College is the best ice cream (note: not gelato, which is different, and possibly always better - can't decide) I've had since the cheap-o vanilla by Alpha we used to get by the bucket in the '80s in Alberta or the daily Häagen-Dazs (yes, I had to look up how to spell that) cookie dough ice cream we bought by the cup-full that holiday in Hawai'i in the '90s.

Now, my favourite flavour of ice cream under normal circumstances, would have to be Tiger. Which is very rare, to my dismay, these days. Rootbeer Float isn't bad either, but it is often disappointing. And then there are the great chocolate ice creams and licorice ice cream (black as night and sometimes easier to find than Tiger) and, well, I could go on.

Ici doesn't have any of these flavours, though. Except chocolate. But it is amazing i-c nonetheless. Let me start at the beginning. Vanilla ice cream is boring. And pedestrian. And not worth $4 (or so) a scoop under any circumstances. Right? Wrong-o. If I didn't need variety in my ice-cream life, I would never get anything else. Well, except maybe vanilla malt.
A few weeks ago when we were in line some hot night at Ici, I met a woman who has been going a few times a week since it opened (did I mention the ice cream genius in the back with eggs and cream used to be the pastry chef at Chez Panisse, or so I've heard?) and keeps swearing to try something new, but each time she goes she can't imagine not getting their (absolutely divine) vanilla. So she has never tried anything else, if you can believe it.

The first ice cream I had at Ici was ginger. And frankly, I find it hard to try anything else after that, too. Their ice cream is really (ice) CREAM - think very, very rich - and full of amazing bursting flavours. I had a sorbet there for the first time a few weeks ago, and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It had the strongest, most powerful scent and taste of raspberry (maybe 'cause it had lime too) I've ever experienced. I'm not so fond of their chocolate, which is a bit too mild for my taste, and the second sorbet (pluot, which a few weeks ago was my favourite fruit to buy at the Bowl) was just too too sweet.

But for the ginger ice cream, the saffron ice cream, the malted vanilla and homemade burnt caramel and toffee, what a place! Hmmm. . . perhaps we should go tonight. . .