Continuing my story about taking my friend, Virginia, to eat in NYC. I REALLY wanted her to try Big Gay Ice Cream truck but the first night we hung out, we got to Union Square after 8pm. By then the truck was already gone. The next day I decided that we should get ice cream first THEN dinner. Smart move I know. Also the night before I had received a tweet from the ice cream man himself that there will be banana cocoa puree as a topping, one of my favorite topping. He rarely has this. Few weeks earlier he had told me that he’s actually not a big fan of bananas. Why?! Bananas are great!

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When I saw that Doug from Big Gay Ice Cream had bought a bottle of blod orange infused balsamic vinegar I was intrigued. So I made my way down to the truck in Union Square and tried it. IT WAS CRAZY AMAZINGLY GOOD!!! I was informed by “somebody” that there may be fig infused balsamic vinegar in the future.

I came back to Brooklyn for some terrible heat and humidity, so I thought I’d help us all cool off by weighing in on two Brooklyn ice cream places I’ve visited this year. I’d heard a lot about both Van Leeuwen and Blue Marble, but I’d never been to their shops. I had once gotten a scoop of Van Leeuwen’s Earl Grey flavor from their ice cream cart, but I thought the texture was a little grainy.

Unfortunately the texture problem continued in the store. The cinnamon flavor (above, left) had a little bit of a kick, but the ice cream was still strangely grainy, rather than creamy (and it appears I’m not the only one disappointed with their ice cream). I appreciate that they use such carefully sourced fresh ingredients, but it feels like a waste.

Blue Marble, on the other hand, was incredibly creamy. Donny tells me that their green tea flavor is the best he’s ever had, but they didn’t have it on the day we visited their Atlantic Ave location. I went for ginger (above, right) instead, which was delicious and rich. It could have used a bit more ginger-y bite, but it was still flavorful and delicious. Van Leeuwen has it’s staunch supporters, but for me Blue Marble blows it out of the water.

Van Leeuwen — 632 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn
Blue Marble — 420 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn

I was hoping to make an ice cream sandwich with CHOCOLATE COVERED STROOPWAFELS! but alas it didn’t happen. I only had 1 chocolate covered stroopwafel left so instead I used a regular old plain stroopwafel. It looked and tasted pretty good but it was so difficult to eat. The caramel in the plain stroopwafel harden from the ice cream which made it very tough to bite. But the chocolate one was fantastic since the chocolate shielded the stroopwafel from the ice cream.

The other day I came across a post on We Heart New York about Totale Pizza, and I was floored. Totale is on St. Mark’s Place, just a few doors down from 2 Bros. Pizza, home of the $1 slice, but it has a wood burning oven. It was apparently opened by the owner of 2 Bros. and someone who worked at Una Pizza Napoletana, which you may remember as my favorite pizza place in NYC, sadly now closed. I decided that I needed to grab lunch at Totale, and then I remembered that the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck is often at Union Square, just a short walk away from St. Mark’s.

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This week I decided to make this dessert because I was lucky enough to get stroopwafels straight from Amsterdam! I have couple friends that live there and they brought me some stroopwafels. Yay!!

So all I needed to make this were couple bananas. The recipe said to warm up the stroopwafels in the oven but I was too lazy to so I heated them up in a pan with a super low flame. Oh I can’t tell you how wonderful it smelled in the kitchen of warm stroopwafel-y smell. AAAhhhhhhhhhhhh. This dessert was REALLY good warm bananas, caramel-y, went perfect with the scoop of vanilla ice cream. YUM!