The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Dearest Readers,

It has become something of a Whimsy tradition that when overseas, I provide you with a review of an ice cream shop. (Well, it's a tradition in my head anyway and that's good enough for me.)

Thus, I write with news of Ice Cream Wonder across the Atlantic - Big Gay Ice Cream Wonder from, where else, The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop in New York's East Village.

The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop started out life as a food truck whizzing around the streets of NYC but, owing to demand, became an-all-year-round ice cream wonder palace in 2011. It's a tiny walk-in shop with a permanent queue outside in the amazing East Village. 

The inside of the shop is the definition of whimsy. There is a giant glittering Unicorn on the wall, and My Little Pony ephemera dotted about the shop. 

I was particularly taken by the multi-coloured cat chalk board next to the menu. 

The menu itself, modelled here by the SIBF, is a thing of sheer joy. I didn't have sufficient time to peruse it, unfortunately, so sort of panic-ordered an ice cream I wouldn't normally go for, but it was still amazing.

The thing about Big Gay Ice Cream is that it's a playful variation on traditional American 'soft-serve' ice cream. Ie Posh Mr Whippy. But better. A million times better. The joy is that the soft-serve itself is beyond delicious - creamy, air-whip-light and flavoursome - but that on top of the ice cream, the toppings are imaginative, exciting and generously portioned. In much the same way I would suggest that eye make-up is all about the glitter, Big Gay Ice Cream is all about the toppings. But I digress. 

I ordered the Rocky Roadhouse - a chocolate ice cream covered in rocky road topping comprising of marshmallows, dark chocolate chips and salted almonds. The ice cream takes its name from Patrick Swayze's 1989 movie Road House and serves as a tribute to the late great man himself. The combination of the crunchy nuts, the chewy marshmallow, the super-soft-serve ice cream and the bitey choc chips was A-may-zing (as Craig Revel Horwood might say if he were judging ice cream rather than dancing).

The SIBF ordered the American Globs which is possibly the quintessential Big Gay Ice Cream as it is 'dipped'. This means that the entire ice cream is dipped in a vat of hot chocolate sauce which then dries and creates a hard outer shell - like what a Magnum tries to do but fails. If someone decided to come up with this idea and sell it here they would make their fortune because once eaten no other ice cream is the same. On top of this, the American Globs featured dark chocolate salty-sweet pretzels dotted throughout it and its name is a tribute to Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' making it ice cream nirvana! 

Anyway, you go in, order your Big Gay Ice Cream, leave and find a stoop to sit on and eat it. Alternatively, you could take your ice cream into Tompkins Square Park, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you like eating ice cream with rats crawling round yr feet. (Not the definition of whimsy.) 

 The trouble is that now that I've had my Big Gay Ice Cream and eaten it, how will I ever go back to ice cream of any other variation?

Coming up next: The Secret Cocktail Bars of NYC #2.

Happy Days,
Whimsy x

Ruby Jewel: re-capture that summer feeling!

Dear Readers,

And so it is September. And so the summer seems to fade away like a distant memory of a rose-tinted time of wonder and glory. And so it is that a Whimsical girl in want of inspiration must attempt to re-capture that wonder through the medium of the memory of ice cream!

Portland, oh Portland! Land of promise, hand-crafted paper and the perfect ice-cream scoop.

Many local Stumptowners and visitors swear by Salt and Straw ice cream for its most bizarre and unexpected flavours, but for a simple old-fashioned girl like me who is never really in favour of mixing ch**se and ice cream together (http://saltandstraw.com/pear.php) Ruby Jewel make the most perfectly creamy and straightforwardly good ice cream.

The menu is tempting yet simple here with a host of 'Always Flavors' and then a series of 'Specials' depending on the parlour.

Always Flavors include:

• Caramel with Salted Dark Chocolate
• Oregon Strawberry
• Espresso
• Cookies & Cream
• Double Chocolate
• Singing Dog Vanilla Bean

Whilst some of the specials are:

• Honey Lavender
• Malted Milk Chocolate Cookie
• Banana Cream Pie
• Peanut Butter Dream
• - – - – Cow Free – - – -
• Pear Vanilla
• Pineapple Basil
• - – - – Soft Serve – - – -
• Malted Vanilla with Cherry
• Caramel Latte Fresh Mint with Chocolate Flake

Additionally, you can top your ice cream with delicious home-made sauces, or go for a legendary Ruby Jewel ice-cream sandwich if you're in the need of more than just the ice cream, and, like in any good ice-cream parlour, milkshakes are always available! (Of course, after HOT CAKES there was no way I could have a milkshake!)

I went for the simplest of all options - Singing Dog Vanilla Bean with hot chocolate sauce - and boy, oh boy, was it good! The Vanilla Bean came out strongly and the structure of the ice cream was amazing - super-thick and rich with that distinctively American ultra-fast whipping that leads to the extreme creamy goodness of a delicious and long-lasting ice cream. The thick ribbons of the chocolate sauce added the ultimate extra direction and lead to the ultimate late-night ice cream perfection in a bowl!

The SIBF was more adventurous... He went for a 'Special Flavor' of Chocolate with Rippled Raspberry Jam. We decided it looked a bit like a special effect from a horror film. It wasn't exactly my kind of ice cream, but if you like a raspberry covered chocolate goo mess, then this is the ice cream for you!

In super-cute style, the parlour is filled with pretty 'Flavor Suggestion' cards for you to fill in. I'm not sure what happens if they do make your flavour, but I'm hoping they give you a bell and invite you in for a free scoop! Maybe they'll make mine and go on to pay for my air fare back?

When you've made your suggestion, pop it in the pink post box and sit by that telephone waiting for the call! 

 So, Ruby Jewel: a perfect parlour for an ice cream pick up. Why isn't there one near me?

Until next time,
Silver Whimsy x

 PS SIBF made it to the end of the Monster SFX Chocolate and Blood Ice Cream Cone... but he's never been the same since...

The Elephant House

Dear Readers, 

I am writing this post LIVE through the medium of Web 2.0 and modern technology aboard the East Coast train service on my way back from Edinburgh - that finest of Scottish cities - where I have been enjoying the festival with SIBF and had the pleasure of bumping into my FSAF who can be seen in THIS play til the end of August. 

I adore Edinburgh and was thrilled to discover there are more amazing cafes there than ever before, but seeing as we were only in town for TWENTY-NINE hours - yes - TWENTY-NINE - I thought I would write to you about my ultimate fail safe Edinburgh cafe - The Elephant House. 

I first set foot in this cafe in the summer of 1998 when I was performing in the festival. It was a sort of hallowed ground for me - a secret, warm, dry spot away from the exhaustion of the twisting cobbled roads and underways. (It was very wet throughout the whole of that August, and I only had one pair of shoes with me that I was wearing for both performance and normal life. My feet suffered, Dear Reader, oh how they suffered!) Turns out 'twas also a special place for JK Rowling who wrote most of Harry Potter there. 

As the name might suggest, The Elephant House is filled with elephants. I don't know why, I've never asked, nor do I particularly wish to know. Normally, I might find that type of interior decor irritating, but here it is perfect.

This is a completely unpretentious cafe. It doesn't use an 'aeropress' for your coffee, it doesn't sell amazing organic cakes, but it also doesn't matter. This is the place to come after a hard day on the fringe. Order a cafetiere for two and a piece of hot chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream.

This is old-skool chocolate fudge cake. Squishy, chewy, thick and gooey. The vanilla ice cream tastes like something you used to have round your best friend's house for a treat on a Saturday afternoon and when it's combined with a rainy, cold Edinburgh evening it is heavenly.

What's more, The Elephant House epitomises that most wonderfully dazzling - almost impossible - dizzying sense of Geography that comes form spending any amount of time in Edinburgh, even TWENTY-NINE hours: look out of one window and you'll see a castle on a hill, look out of another and you'll see Arthur's Seat. The whole city is straight out of a fantasy landscape.

So whilst you may well find a more modern / hipster vibe in some of Edinburgh's other coffee shops (I really wanted to go into the coffee shop inside Avalanche records on the Grassmarket, but what with our TWENTY-NINE hours only we didn't have time) if you're looking for something oddly comforting and nostalgic (at least through my eyes anyway) then The Elephant House it is. 

And if you're looking for something completely different, why not go to the caff down the road and have a deep fried mars bar instead? 

Silver Whimsy x