It's summer. That means ice cream!

8 weeks in Chicago and I had yet to find a decent ice creamery.  To be entirely honest, I have very high expectations from my ice cream.  I have been spoiled by years of my mom's fresh, homemade ice creams at home as well as fabulous ice cream parlors like Murray's Homemade Ice Creams in Kansas City or Three Sisters in Providence. Especially now that I have begun to experiment with my own frozen dairy concoctions (like maple walnut, banana with nutella and peanut butter, fresh peach, blackberry, cream cheese) I am very critical of ice cream shops.  Mass produced, sugary, low fat ice cream won't cut it.  When I go to a creamery, I want unique flavors, smooth and creamy consistency, and a fun shop location.  I want something that will excite my mouth with new flavors that I can't make myself.  Ice cream made with as much care and attention as Da Vinci put into La Joconde. I found one such place in Kansas City that fulfills all these desires and more.  It's called Murray's Homemade Ice Creams.  It is closed during the winter and has an old school feel.  The ice cream is all made fresh in small batches.  Each cone is weighed so that no one is slighted from all the ice cream they deserve.  The staff is very generous with the samples, which is the sign of a good shop.  The have the most amazing flavor: Chocolate Flake Fromage that is tangy, creamy, sweet, and chocolately all at the same time.  In a freshly made waffle cone, it is without doubt one of the best I've had.  I'm still in the process of attempting to recreate its magnificence to even 5% of accuracy.

(Stawberry and Maple Bacon outside Murray's)

I came to Chicago the first day of June.  Chicago has a weird food culture and inconsistent tastes.  It has some amazing places that are world renowned but slightly ridiculous (cough cough Alinea), some places with fresh local ingredients, and many many awful places that are wildly popular.  Yelp reviews of most restaurants have no consistency and range sporadically from 1-5 stars, love or hate.  For example, the most popular breakfast place is called Bongo Room which specializes in overly sweet, chewy pancakes smothered in sweet icing full of cream.  I guess the pancakes have to be rubbery to hold up to the slop on top.  Or the icing was added to mask the flavor of what lies beneath. I don't understand the hour long waits each weekend.  I ate there once with my girlfriend and we were both sick all day.  I highly recommend eating here if you want to be terrified of eating pancakes again. 

S'mores pancakes at Bongo Room

Then on the other hand, Chicago has marvelous little gems like Hot Doug's.  Chicago is famous for its hot dogs, but nothing stands up to a Hot Doug.  To picture it, imagine a small corner dive diner on the outside.  As you drive up on a typical weekend you see a few people out the door.  Seems odd for this little place.  Then you drive closer and see the line starting to bend around the building. Hmm... Once you park you realize that the line is 100 people deep and over an hour long wait. "Is it really worth waiting in line," you ask yourself.  You decide to see what all the fuss is about and wait. Finally, after sitting in the sun for over an hour you step into the air conditioned building.  The amount of hot dog paraphernalia and pop culture icons depicted as hot dogs is mind blowing. The menu has the classic chicago dog with all the fillings.  Then there are the Hot Doug's.  These are special: duck sausage with fois gras and truffle aioli, wild elk with gouda and beer mustard, rattlesnake sausage with mango mayo, and duck fat fried fries to name a few delicacies.  Of every place I have taken Chicago visitors, Hot Doug's is everyone's favorite.   The atmosphere is fun and quirky in theme with the balding, bespectacled man named Doug who mans the cashier everyday from 10-4 (or until everyone in line is served).  A must have if you ever go to Chicago.

Waiting in Line

Sign of Special Doug's

Mmmmm Lunch for 2

Again, 8 weeks here and I had yet to find a decent ice cream place.  I tried Yelp but given the experience mentioned above, I was severely disappointed with every place I went.  Given that it is summer and it was extremely difficult to eat solid food, I resorted to getting yuppy ice cream at Whole Foods.  Luckily, but with bad timing, Chicago had an event dubbed "The Chicago Luxury Ice Cream Festival" last Friday.  To anyone who likes ice cream, this event was ecstasy.  The event offered all the samples one could eat from a dozen local ice creameries.  Some were more chain like with predictable flavors like oreo while some were luxurious with pear sorbet in a champagne float.  The best flavors were the blueberry swirl from Sassy Cow Creamery (they have their own organic dairy farm they use to make ice cream) and the sour cream chocolate from Mac's.  For two hours we got to sample over 20 flavors of ice cream!! At the half way point we sat out on the patio to digest, consider the flavors we had tried, and strategize our next plan of attack.  It was a gorgeous night in Chicago.  Afterwards we wandered through the building the event was held in, which turned out to the the Nature Museum.  It held a beautiful butterfly sanctuary with butterflies the size of my hand. All in all a fun night, but more importantly a night that revealed the underground dairy secrets of Chicago.

A couple nights later we tried a gelato place we sampled at the Ice Cream Festival called Black Dog Gelato. It's right on the edge of Wicker Park in a simple residential neighborhood, which make parking impossible.  I never would have noticed the spot if I had not been looking for it.  Thanks GoogleMaps.  Black Dog is a very, local small shop opened up by a former pastry chef a couple years ago.  They make the gelato regularly in the shop and close doors once they sell out of flavors.  The first night we went they were almost entirely sold out with only a few flavors left out of about 20.  All the flavors were intriguing.  They had a good combination of classic flavors and unique twists, as well a friendly staff that was generous with the sample spoons.  The chocolate was not intense, chocolate lovers like a lot I've tried.  It was more accessible to the general chocolate taster with a milk/semisweet chocolate base.  It was incredibly smooth and velvety like gelato should be.  However, I saw that they also make their own pies! The owner is a pastry chef by training so I had to get a slice.  At the end of the tastings, I walked out with a slice of apple pie with a crumb topping with balsamic gelato al la mode.  The pie was amazing.  The crust was light and crunchy and the filling was perfectly tart and sweet.  The balsamic ice cream was a fascinating combination of deep, slightly acidic balsamic and sweet, creamy gelato.  Very yummy.  It was so good that we went back another night for seconds and hopefully to sample some different flavors.  This time I got a cup with mint oreo, malted vanilla, and salted peanut.  Chocolate would have been a much better flavor contribution than mint oreo but oh well.  The salted peanut was overly salty for some people but I thought it had the perfect balance of fluer de sel, peanuts, and sweet cream.  It was a orgy of flavors for my tongue.  I will definitely return to Black Dog the next time I'm in Chicago.