Movenpick

Set up in Adelaide’s super trendy West End, Movenpick offers their top quality icecreams and sorbets as well as a range of other desserts. We decided to get the icecream tasting plate to share between 3, which comes with 6 scoops ($14.95). We picked: creme brulee, macadamia, rum & raisin, choc mint, strawberry and the lemon & lime sorbet. My pick of the bunch was the strawberry – it was like eating creamy, rich strawberry jam without being sickly. Give me a tub and leave me alone, I’ll be a happy woman. My next favourite was the lemon & lime sorbet – it was just so refreshing and the citrus flavour was perfection. Macadamia would probably come next, one of those great icecreams where the more you eat, the better it tastes, followed by the choc mint, which had awesome quality flakes of chocolate and was really quite minty. I’m not a huge rum & raisin fan, but the quality and richness of flavour was evident, even to me. We all felt the creme brulee seemed a bit bland, but only by comparison. Alone, it was subtle and rich. So basically there were no real duds – six for six Movenpick, well played.

Movenpick, 6 Leigh Street, Adelaide SA, http://www.moevenpick-icecream.com/au

Scroll

Oh, hello novelty #icecreamthurs! When someone is passionate about something, it can be infectious; Danny from Scroll is passionate about creating a fun, quality experience for customers visiting Australia’s first teppanyaki icecream parlour, Scroll. The experience is unique – you order one of six icecream and topping combinations, and watch your Scroll master create icecream right in front of you on a cold plate. I ordered the Perfect Matcha ($9, $8 if you check in on Facebook), made with Matcha Maiden tea and Fleurieu milk (yay for supporting local!), and topped with lychee, strawberry Pocky and blueberries. Wow. There is a huge amount of icecream in the cup, and I really liked the addition of fruit for balance. The icecream itself is incredibly creamy (Danny tells me there are no stabilisers or preservatives), and the green tea flavour is beautiful – not too sweet and very clearly full of high quality matcha powder. The Pocky (a Japanese snack) add a fun twist and a different flavour/texture combination that goes well with the matcha. Yum. Being social media savvy, Scroll is also encouraging customers to tag their photos with #scrollin on Instagram, for the chance of a repost and free icecream. Yes, please.

Scroll, 35 York Street, Adelaide SA, http://www.scrollicecream.com.au/

Goodberry’s

My friends were appalled to discover that I hadn’t been to Goodberry’s before – apparently it’s a Canberran institution, and on a warm evening my friend took me out to the Belconnen store (there’s also one in Erindale) for my first taste of their famous frozen custard. Frozen custard? Yep. I’ve had frozen yoghurt, but this is a whole new thing. The recommended way to try it is in a ‘concrete’ – a cup of either chocolate or vanilla frozen custard, to which you can add any number of flavourings, so I picked vanilla and decided to add in Reece’s peanut butter cups as my flavouring. You can add more than one, but I was keen to taste the custard as much as possible. The concrete was ready quickly and I was surprised at how big the cup is (much bigger than most #icecreamthurs servings!). The custard really does take on the flavour of what you add, so mine had a lovely hint of vanilla against the salted chocolate and pops of peanut butter and chocolate strewn throughout. Definitely great value and a fun Canberra thing to have ticked off my list!

Goodberry’s 25 Lathlain Street, Belconnen ACT, http://goodberrys.com.au/

XO

 

ICYMI, summer is over. Sad face. My somewhat child-like reaction is to eat lots of icecream and pretend that never happened. Feel free to play along with #icecreamthurs. XO has become one of my favourite restaurants in a very short space of time; they have the trifecta of great service, ambiance and food. Oh, and they have icecream. Yep. I was very excited to try their much-Instagrammed chrysanthemum tea soft serve after a lovely dinner visit with friends. We were so full but, really, who can resist a soft serve? They came out on a specially designed tray and looked heavenly. Now if you’re after a super sweet dessert, don’t order this soft serve – the flavour is exactly what you would expect from an Asian-style dessert; subtle and almost savoury. There’s something familiar about the chrysanthemum tea flavour that had us all searching our memories – there’s a slight bitterness from the tea which really fills your mouth, but is counterbalanced by the creaminess. The texture was fabulous, although on a warm night we had to eat them quickly to avoid melting! I can definitely see myself stopping in just for this in future.

XO, 16 Iluka Street, Narrabundah ACT, http://www.xo-restaurant.com.au

N2 Extreme Gelato

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to #icecreamthurs! Sadly summer is over, so let’s try to keep the magic alive by eating lots of icecream until it gets warm again! One of the most popular stalls at the Night Noodle Markets last year was N2 Extreme Gelato – this year, they’ve combined forces with Black Star Pastry, producing a gelato that recreates their famed Strawberry and Watermelon cake in gelato form. After queuing for a good 20 minutes (I’d highly recommend having dessert first to avoid longer queues), I ordered the Cake Smash Gelato ($9), which was served with the same rose-flavoured cream that the cake has on top, with a light sprinkle of pistachio and rose petals. Once you get through to the gelato itself, there’s a delightful surprise – freeze-dried bits of strawberry and watermelon are scattered throughout, although the real strawberry sweetness comes from the pipette of strawberry sauce you squeeze over the top. The gelato does melt quickly so I wouldn’t try to savour this one for a long time – I ended up drinking the last couple of mouthfuls – but definitely give it a try as a delicious, creamy gelato with perfect bites of fruit within.

N2 Extreme Gelato, Night Noodle Market, Reconciliation Place until 13 March, http://n2extremegelato.com.au/

Sublime Gelato

This will be the last #icecreamthurs post for 2015 – thanks for playing along and I look forward to sharing more icecream discoveries in 2016. Westside Acton is one of my favourite places to have lunch – I haven’t had a bad meal there, and now that the weather is warming up, it’s a great place to laze and enjoy the sunshine. I met up with a friend for lunch, and after eating we didn’t really want to leave, so we picked up gelato from Sublime, which has recently opened (yay!). The range of flavours is quite broad for such a small stall, and whilst the $5 per scoop isn’t quite a good value as say, Frugii ($5 for two scoops), the gelato here is good quality. After considering the rather tempting Belgian chocolate and the white chocolate and raspberry coulis flavours, I went for the dairy-free option and picked a single scoop of the strawberry sorbet. The cup was a standard scoop size, and we found seats out in the sunshine to enjoy our gelato. The strawberry flavour was very sweet was consistent throughout. Although a bit melty, I would happily order it again.

Sublime Gelato, Westside Acton, 3 Barrine Drive, Acton ACT

Frugii Dessert Laboratory

I loved the TV show Pokemon as a kid – the idea of ‘catch ’em all’ appealed to my inner collector – as does the ever changing flavour menu at Frugii. This visit was part of my #touristinmyowntown adventure, showing a friend from Adelaide the best of Canberra. Of course Frugii was on that list. We stopped in on a Thursday night and the two sorbets on offer were Grapefruit and Passionfruit. Mmm. I sampled the Grapefruit and fell completely in love – sorbets are naturally sweet, so paired with a sour fruit, there is a harmonious balance that ticks all the tastebud boxes. I got a scoop of the Passionfruit too (a small cup with two scoops is $5), after plenty of helpful advice from the friendly staff. Frugii’s sorbets aren’t trying to emulate the creaminess of icecream, because they’re spending plenty of time making sure the flavour is spot on. The passionfruit was really lush and had that fabulously tropical flavour – nothing synthetic here folks. Having added two new flavours to my collection, I wonder what the next one will be on my quest to catch ’em all?

Frugii Dessert Laboratory, 30 Lonsdale Street, Braddon ACT, http://www.frugii.com/