New Thing #46 - Emack & Bolio's

This week was pretty busy, so I did something pretty tame today. I tried a new ice cream place with Betsy. That may sound lame, but you obviously don't understand my relationship with ice cream. It's deep and it's real, people. And it goes back at least 4 generations. My dad has told me stories about how his grandfather used to have around 5 different gallons of ice cream in his freezer at any given time. I usually have at least 3 different kinds, but they're pints or quarts, not gallons. The rest of my family is the same way. I think my grandma single-handedly kept the Schwan's man in business. My favorite ice cream from my youth has to be Summer's Dream, a heady mixture of vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet. Too bad you can only get it through Schwan's in the summer and it costs roughly the same price as a kidney on the black market. Other brands have attempted to make something similar, but I've yet to find any mixture that compares to the Schwan's brand. My primary ice cream place of preference now is Cold Stone Creamery. There's something incredibly comforting about drowning out your sorrows in a bowl full of that creamy goodness.

Today, I went to a place called Emack & Bolio's in South City. Weird name, but apparently it's a chain store started in Boston three years before Ben & Jerry's got their start in the 70s. It was created by a Boston lawyer who did a lot of pro-bono work and represented numerous homeless people. Two of those people, Emack and Bolio, asked to have the shop named after them. And from there a franchise was born. The tagline for the store is Ice Cream for the Connoisseur. I like it already.

The store is located in a hip, colorful shop across from Tower Grove Park off of Grand. Bright funky 70s color scheme, floor to ceiling windows, a massive selection of ice creams and a guy behind the counter with a slight staring problem. Seriously, we walked in and he continued to stare us down until we finally ordered. Weirdo. They also sell yogurt, smoothies, hand made chocolates and hot dogs. Yep, hot dogs. And mini pizzas. Kinda random.

I like to try new flavors of ice cream, although I usually stick with my favorites depending on where I am. At Cold Stone I get the Founder's Favorite which is made with sweet cream ice cream, a brownie, pecans and a double shot of caramel sauce. Sounds awesome, right? Ted Drewes, which is actually frozen custard and not ice cream, has a pumpkin pie concrete that is to die for in the fall. The pieces of the crust are the best part. I don't usually go there except for that, even though it's a St. Louis legend. At the grocery store, I usually end up with the Snickers ice cream or the Girl Scouts Samoas in the spring. Damn, I'm craving more ice cream even as I type this! Although I do love me some chocolate, I actually don't like chocolate ice cream. Never have. I love chocolate IN my ice cream, but not as my base flavor. I know, I'm odd.

Since there were so many different flavors to choose from, I decided to get two different scoops. One was Toasted Coconut Chip, a coconut ice cream with actual coconut, not just flavored with it, and dark chocolate chips. The other scoop was Deep Purple Cow, black raspberry ice cream with blueberry pieces and white and dark chocolate chips. Betsy had Moose Tracks, vanilla ice cream with chocolate flakes and peanut butter cups, and Cookie Monster, cookie dough ice cream with chunks of Oreo cookies.

My two are on the left, with Betsy's on the right.

Taking my first bite. No, I don't usually eat ice cream with my eyes closed. That would be weird.

In general, the ice cream wasn't bad. I liked the unique flavors and really enjoyed the coconut ice cream. But, the ice cream itself wasn't very creamy. Dry and brittle is not really used to describe ice cream, but I don't really know how else to describe it. There was something about the texture of it that I wasn't really digging. Don't get me wrong, I still ate it (I am a Jones after all), but I wasn't overly jazzed about it. Which was kind of disappointing. The deep purple cow was very flavorful, but it had some kind of weird aftertaste associated with it. It was kind of gritty. Again, not something I associate with ice cream!

Overall, it wasn't a bad experience, but I can say that I probably won't be craving any Emack & Bolio's any time soon. I think I'll stick with my standby of CSC.