Coast Cuisine - August 2016

We All Scream For Ice Cream

Join us as we visit five local establishment serving frozen desserts, sampling homemade gelatos, sorbets and ice creams in gourmet flavors, as well as frozen yogurt, root beer floats Dipping Dots. But hurry, before it melts.
- story and photos by Lisa Monti, additional photos, Ellis Anderson

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It doesn’t have to be summertime to get a craving for ice cream, but it’s steamy out there - luckily for us - we have a variety of places around town to get a cool scoop in all sorts of delicious variations. Here’s what we found:
 
When Nancy Moynan worked at the fabled Commander’s Palace, she found she liked making up different combinations of ice cream flavors. “It kind of stuck with me,” said the chef and owner of LuLu’s on Main (126 Main Street). For that, ice cream fans can be very grateful.
 
Nancy makes her homemade ice cream in small batches every day, all year around. The flavor of the day could be blueberry cream cheese, coffee, maybe goat cheese chartreuse (try it before you make a face). 

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Homemade blueberry cream cheese and coffee, photo courtesy Lulu's

“I just use all natural ingredients, basically cream, sugar and fruit or cheese,” Moynan said, making something so delicious sound so simple.
 
No matter the temperature or season, customers happily end their meals with an ice cream or a sorbet for dessert. “Sometimes we’ll sell ice cream like crazy in the winter months. It doesn’t have to be a special time year. It’s just a special treat,” she said.
 
At Sycamore House Restaurant (210 Main St.), the homemade ice cream is billed as fresh flavors of the moment and the offerings are generously varied: creole cream cheese, mint chocolate chip, coffee, blueberry, roasted marshmallow, peach buttermilk, salted caramel.

One scoop or two? A taste test of all the flavors didn’t bring on brain freeze, but did set off an avalanche of adjectives. Tart buttermilk peach. Salty-sweet caramel. Richly satisfying cream cheese. Robust coffee. One taste and it becomes your favorite. Until the next taste. And the next. Pick any one of these treats and you can’t go wrong.
 
Sycamore House customers too full after their meal are known to come back just for something sweet. Enjoy a bowl on the porch, in the dining room, or at the small bar if there’s room.

At the Sycamore House, Lisa tried samples of homemade chocolate chip, creole cream cheese and blueberry.

When a restaurant calls itself a creperie, you know it’s serious about dessert. And for a small place (25 seats), Cannella International Creperie & More (1113 U.S. 90) packs a lot into the menu, including four gelato and four sorbet flavors.
 
“The gelato and sorbet we make ourselves,” said Roberto Zito, who owns Cannella with wife Toni. You can order either with the made-fresh crepes or alongside the baked apple dessert, but Roberto said, “the gelato is so good, most people enjoy it by itself.”
 
The current gelato menu lists espresso, pistachio honey ricotta (just-right richness and chunky), cioccolato, bourbon creme brûlée with the right amount of sweetness and espresso gelato. Sorbet flavors are blood orange ginger, a refreshingly tart limoncello, mango lime chile with a spicy kick and tasty red berry Prosecco.
 
Order one, two and three scoops served in a cup or in a large waffle cone.
 
The flavors change periodically because customers and the owners like the variety. “We eat it, too!” said Toni.

A sampling of sorbet flavors at Canella

Cypress Cafe (300 South Second St.) is the place to get the futuristic Dippin’ Dots Ice Cream, those tiny spheres of ice cream that melt away to creamy goodness in your mouth. One popular flavor is Cookies ’n Cream studded with generous chunks of Oreos. The cafe also sells Chocolate, Rainbow, Strawberry and sometimes Mint Chocolate. The dots are scooped out of containers held in a special freezer and served by the cupful. Lots of cups.
 
Chef Sherry Prater says students from the nearby schools are huge fans of Dippin’ Dots and they come in regularly for their favorite flavors. “You don’t want to run out,” said the chef. “You should see those disappointed little faces.”
 
Grownup ice cream fans lean more toward Cypress Cafe’s vanilla served atop a chocolate chip brownie, crowned with whipped cream, chocolate caramel and Prater’s praline-candied pecans.

Dipping Dots and browning sundaes and rootbeer floats at Cypress Café

Over at Purple Banana (300 South Second St.), cool treats come in eight flavors of frozen yogurt and more than 40 toppings. Do the math. Or rather, work your way through the standard selections of self-serve froyo - vanilla, strawberry, cheesecake, cake batter and triple chocolate - or go for the seasonal offerings of cappuccino, tangerine mango and butter pecan (if you’re remembering something you had that was minty, that probably was last holiday season).
 
Picking toppings can be a little challenging, just because there are so many delicious choices: coconut, pecans, chocolate chip, Oreos, Butter Fingers, and many more. Enjoy your frozen yogurt in cups or cones (waffle and small sugar cones).  At the cash register, guess the weight of your serving and it's free if you're right!

LuLu’s on Main
126 Main St.
(228) 463-1670
 
Sycamore House
210 Main St.
(228) 469-0107
 
Cannella Creperie and More
1113 U.S. 90
(228) 467-4110
 
Cypress Cafe
300 South Second St.
(228) 466-4877
 
Purple Banana
107 Court St.
(228) 466-2978