Adventures in Ice Cream

There were some strange things going on Saturday. At Tasti-D-Lite.. someone had left their credit card there. A clever employee taped it to the glass, concealing the card number neatly. Franci Endich if you're miraculously connected to these internets, head to TastiD on 86th Street to get your card. Also Franci, if you're buying so much fake ice cream that you have to charge it, you have serious problems beyond just forgetting your card. And congrats on winning the Ex-Lax award from your fraternity.
When my wife asked for a raspberry smoothie, the girl behind the counter said they were completely out of vanilla. How can you run out of vanilla? If the entire liquid half your menu requires vanilla to make, how do you run out? I don't understand. No smoothies, no shakes, no power boosts? The horrified look on the girls face when I suggested making the raspberry smoothie with the double dutch chocolate fake ice cream told me that I was probably the first person to suggest that all night, or all time. That's why I'm not the one making smoothies for a living people. Leave that to the experts.

Medium cup of swirled soft serve TastiD in hand, we walked around the corner to ColdStone Creamery to get me the real deal. None of that fake crap for me. So I doublechecked with my wife, "Are you sure it's ok to go into Cold Stone while eating the competitors product?" I was reassured that it would be no problem. We stroll in, wait on the line filled with teenagers, I decide what to get while CNote happily eats her fake ice cream. Before I can even order, the guy behind the counter starts yelling at CNote "what is that? hey everyone, look what she has" and the other counterpeople turn to look. He looked enraged and as if he were about to jump the counter. At this point I was scared. Scared that I wasn't going to get my ice cream.

The episode quickly came to an end when someone at the register left a tip. The deal with Cold Stone is that when someone leaves a tip, they make a big stink and the entire staff breaks into song. Not just any song, Cold Stone songs. They have jingles & chants- anywhere from 10-30 seconds. Some are hard to understand, the staff laughs through them. The best ones are when they take regular songs and change the lyrics; Addams Family, Flintstones and the greatest Cold Stone fake song of all time- Theme From Cops. Cold Stone Cold Stone whatcha' gonna do, whatcha gonna do when we mix for you, Cold Stone Cold Stone whacha' gonna do. Unfortunately this visit we did not get Cops and I was too scared from the above incident to video the antics anyway.

The ice cream at Cold Stone is freshly made and you are allowed one "mix-in" for free. The staff uses two big flat spoons to scoop up your ice cream into a ball, then they place it on a cold stone and work at it with the spoons and your choice of mix-in. I went with the white chocolate ice cream and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups for my mix-in. They took actual whole PB cups and crushed and mixed them with the spoons. Since the small size was $4.49 and the medium was only fifty cents more, I went medium. I ended up with a softball sized ball or ice cream plopped into a cup. It tasted great- creamy and thick. Too filling for one sitting, I put most into the freezer for later. Best thing since the Cadbury Mini Eggs McFlurry.

If you clicked the audio link at the top, you've been listening to Will Bernard's electronic project from 2001. Cool.
category: food_ nyc_