Friday, November 18, 2011

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

 I've made it clear that when it comes to gelato Dojo has my heart.  I've got the warm n' fuzzies for that place super bad.  Not only because they made me a gelato believer (every gelato I had had prior did not impress), but they crank out deliciously creative concoctions with some major local flair. Plus, it's one of those places that reminds me of dating Antoine.  I remember the first time he brought me a pint of Dojo gelato, it was such a sweet moment...we had just started dating, we were getting pretty serious and he was always surprising me with things like that.

Anyway, where was I!?  As far as gelato goes, Dojo is it for me.  But when it comes to ice cream I tend not to pick favorites.  All ice cream is different to me, each has it's own texture, taste and special place in my belly.  I cannot compare soft serve from Hold the Nuts to Dairy Queen (nostalgia central), Young's Dairy to Graeter's.  They're all so different and wonderful in their own way.  So, naturally, I am never opposed to trying out a new ice cream place when someone recommends one.  [Seriously, I think I need an ice cream related tattoo...I've got a major addiction going on here!]  So, when several people recommended Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams to Antoine and I, we just had to check it out for ourselves.  Unfortunately, we don't often find ourselves in Columbus, where Jeni's is headquartered.  And while Jeni's is sold in several local stores...I'd much rather get the whole experience, especially for the first time around.  But leave it to Antoine to come up with a genius idea...he hunted down and found a Jeni's shop on the way back home from our recent trip to Cleveland and it only meant a very small detour off of 71.  My sis was with us, and seeing as how this love of ice cream runs in the family, she was happy with the little detour.


 I was blown away by the selection.  There were three freezer cases and each had about 8 unique and interesting flavors in it!  It was a tad overwhelming...and that's coming from me, someone who's generally pretty good about making quick decisions.  I felt bad for my poor sister, she's not so good at the decision making!

 One of the really awesome parts about Jeni's is they're all about you trying as many flavors as you like!  And I think we probably tried about half of them!  The only thing I didn't like about the sampling was that they used little plastic spoons, instead of little metal, reusable spoons like Dojo does.  It makes me, as a consumer, feel a little bit better about trying as many flavors as I want.

 For me, the second I tried the Brown Butter Almond Brittle I knew exactly what I wanted!  It was creamy and buttery and nutty.  Awesome.  For my second flavor I got the Black Coffee which was rich and bold but not too overwhelmning.

 Antoine went for the Salty Caramel (good, but I like Dojo's Sea Salted Caramel better) and the Brown Butter Almond Brittle.

My adorable sis went ordered (from top to bottom): Gravel Road, Whiskey & Pecans, and Brambleberry Crisp (her fav of the three).

Then after we finished out delicious ice cream, they even let us try a couple more flavors, now that the line had disappeared.  The Riesling Poached Pear sorbet was particularly good, as was the Smoked Tea & Plum Pudding. 


As far as fancy, unique ice cream flavors go, Jeni's is pretty awesome.  I like the variety, although not all of them hit it out of the park for me.  For instance, the Frankencense & Almond Cake tasted like an air freshener to me, and the Cumin & Honey Butterscotch was a little too much like putting a teaspoon of Cumin in my mouth.  But the rest of the flavors that we tried were fantastic, and it'd highly recommend trying Jeni's out sometime, if you haven't already.  It's certainly fun tasting all those flavors, and you might be surprised by which blow your mind and which don't!

2 comments:

Thomas said...

You did the exact same thing we did. We weren't in Columbus but we looked up where a Jenni's was to try it. We were then hooked. Their flavors are so original (my fav is honey butter cake).

My sister met Jenni at Books by the Banks a few weeks ago and bought Andrea and I a copy of her cookbook, which she graciously signed. I can't wait to try and make some flavors of my own. If I make something awesome I'll be sure to send you and Antoine some.

dissolvedintosomething said...

That's so cool that she got to meet her! Oh I saw that cookbook, it looked amazing, and it seemed to have a TON of recipes in it! Let me know how it goes!!