Ice Cream!

June 4, 2007

ctnow.com

Ah, summer. The only season where it is completely acceptable to eat ice cream on a daily basis. Here are five local places to do so.

80 Licks Ice Cream Café
Route 66, Marlborough Street, Portland
860-342-8080
Chocolate ice cream cone with chocolate sprinkles, $2.30

Growing up I fondly remember family trips to the ice cream parlor to beat the summer heat with a cone or sundae. Now I find myself looking forward to those hot summer days when I can head down to an ice cream shop and relive my youth with my ultimate favorite: a chocolate ice cream cone with chocolate sprinkles.

I must have driven by 80 Licks Ice Cream Cafe in Portland about a million times, but this time I finally stopped to see how they make my favorite concoction.

They didn't disappoint. The rock n' roll themed ice cream parlor - open three years this June - offers homemade ice cream, Italian style gelato, sherbet, sorbet, Italian ices and more.

80 Licks' flavors are made daily and reflect a rock n' roll artist or song. Some of my personal favorites are I Found My Thrill (blueberry ice cream), Lemon Zeppelin (lemon gelato) and the Alice Scooper (a sundae with four scoops of ice cream and three toppings). Toppings for your ice cream -- or "ZZ Toppings" as 80 Licks likes to call them -- range from hot fudge to Nerds.

While waiting in line to order you can hang out beside Elvis, or at least a life-sized replica of him (complete with guitar). On the Sunday we went to 80 Licks the line was out the door, literally. The main area of the shop is small, but after ordering head outside to sit on their front porch and enjoy your ice cream while watching the cars go by on Route 66.

80 Licks is open to suggestions for naming new flavors of ice cream, with a rock n' roll theme, of course.

-- AMY ELLIS

Dairy Creme
395 Turnpike Drive, Route 75, Windsor Locks
860-623-7635
Soft Serve Cone, $1.60 small, $2 medium, $2.50 large; Chocolate dip, $.25

Soft serve melts fast in the summertime - way faster than traditional hard ice cream. So eating a soft serve cone on a hot day requires a game plan.

First of all, you need some pockets. You're only going to have one free hand after you get your cone, so it's useful to have pockets nearby to hold your ice cream money. A pocket also comes in handy to hold your second most important item - extra napkins.

Once you've got your cone in your grasp , the last thing you want to do is hesitate. The fragile consistency of soft serve needs your immediate attention. So start eatin'. Try to consume the ice cream evenly from all sides of the cone. If you've brought friends with you, politely suspend all conversation until the soft serve is safely beneath the edges of the cone.

Find yourself some shade as you eat. Shade will slow the melting process. At Dairy Creme in Windsor Locks, we were happy to plant ourselves at one of the many picnic benches strategically located under the canopy of trees.

Dairy Creme , found across from Bradley international Airport, has been a local favorite since 1954. Unlike many other ice cream huts in the area, you can watch distant airplanes take off and land while tending to your cone.

Remember, failure to follow some sort of soft serve drill on a hot day will end in disaster. Before you know it, your precious ice cream will be dripping down the sides of the cone, over your hand and onto the ground, and all that yumminess will be wasted.

And nobody should waste good ice cream on a hot day.

-- MARIE SHANAHAN

Shady Glen
840 Middle Turnpike, or
360 Middle Tpke West, Manchester
860-643-0511, 860-649-4245
Ice Cream Sundae, $4.77

If you're yearning for an ice cream sundae this summer, look no further than Shady Glen in Manchester. Those of us who grew up in Manchester know, for a fact, that there is no better place to eat ice cream. This is serious stuff - creamy, delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, homemade goodness that's been perfected over the past seven decades.

Shady Glen is the cream of the crop, and they've got quite the crop to choose from, too. My husband's fave is the black raspberry. My mom loves the maple walnut. There are traditionalists who go for mint-chocolate chip, chocolate or vanilla. Kids go crazy over mocha chip and chocolate caramel crunch. But my choice on a recent visit was tried and true - hot fudge sundae with Grape Nut Ice Cream.

Are you curious as to how utterly awesome ice cream made out of cereal can actually taste? Then you must try Shady Glen's Grape Nut Ice Cream. Think malt, like that almost nutty flavor of a malted shake, or the crunchy center of a malted milk ball. Add to that the creamy, buttery texture of nothing but the best ice cream the world has to offer and you've got a masterpiece.

Shady Glen's Grape Nut Hot Fudge Sundae is superb. The ice cream has the perfect texture, a slight chewiness that makes the serving substantial and satisfying, with the characteristic nutty malt flavor I've come to love. Then there is the drizzle of decadent homemade hot fudge and the pyramid of fresh whipped cream topped by a cherry.

The result? The world's most perfect ice cream sundae for a hot summer afternoon. Be sure to also try the classic Bernice Burger with its trademark halo of fried cheese. After all, those of us raised in Manchester know "The Glen" is THE joint for a cheeseburger, too.

-- MICHELLE MARINELLI PRINDLE

Praline's Café
50 Center St., Southington
860-620-9226
Dirt Sundae $4.60

Praline's Café is everything an ice cream shop should be - small, full of varieties, and busy in the summer. Advertising as the "best scoop in town," this café offers more than 45 different ice cream flavors and more than 25 different toppings as well as a variety of ice cream pies, cookies, and even doggie ice cream for your favorite pooch.

As I waited in the endless line, I perused the menu, but I was overwhelmed by the number of choices. I mean how many ice cream places have flavors like Graham Cracker Smacker and White Russian. Instead of creating my own sundae concoction, I decided to opt for one of the already designed sundaes on the menu. The dirt sundae seemed right up my alley with is soft served vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, Oreo pieces, gummi bears, and homemade whipped cream.

When the girl at the counter handed me my sundae, I was amazed that I got an ice cream dish that big for under $5. Not skimping on the toppings, the velvety vanilla ice cream was covered in thick hot fudge and tons of Oreo and gummi pieces. However, my favorite part was the whipped cream. The rich and creamy homemade topping added a decadent taste to a sundae that's supposed to be modeled after dirt.

Just as a heads up, Praline's doesn't have much indoor seating, so a visit here is best left for those clear, warm summer nights.

-- RENEE TRAYNOR

Sweet Claude's Ice Cream
828 South Main Street, Cheshire
203-272-4237
Medium cup, banana split ice cream: $3.15

With a "we make our own" motto and plenty of variety, Sweet Claude's in Cheshire is a local shop that makes it easy for us to get our at a daily dose of ice cream. Located in a picturesque house on top of a hill, the place offers outdoor seating on a porch overlooking the road below and enough flavors to satisfy anyone's taste.

I decided on the banana split flavor ice cream. Why get a whole banana split sundae when I can get all the same flavors for almost two bucks less? Unless you're a big fan of the whole bananas in the banana split sundae, save your money and just get the ice cream.

My medium cup consisted of two generous scoops of this creamy concoction. The homemade banana flavored ice cream was topped with whole maraschino cherries, still-frozen strawberries, walnuts, fudge swirls, and the occasional hint of shredded pineapple.

Refreshing yet filling on a hot summer day and it didn't melt as fast as an actual banana split might under all that hot fudge.

Sweet Claude's also offers ice cream pies and cakes, as well as frozen yogurt, tofutti and sorbet.

-- MICHELLE COLLINS

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