Offbeat Eats

(Closed) A few years ago I did a review of Toscanini’s Ice Cream in Cambridge, MA, in which I mentioned that their burnt caramel ice cream is my second favorite ice cream ever, losing out to my favorite ice cream, the salted caramel from Izzy’s in St Paul, MN. However, I recently went to go point someone to my review of Izzy’s, and I realized that I’ve never actually written them up. Well, last week’s trip to the Twin Cities gave me another opportunity to visit Izzy’s, and this time I figured I should actually write them up.

(Moved) And no rest for the weary. Coming back from Chicago, I immediately turned around and left on a work trip to Dayton. Dayton’s not a bad place. I particularly like the National Museum of the United States Air Force, since nothing like a few hours of looking at airplans like SR-71s to cheer you up (at least if you are an engineer like me). But, to be honest, Dayton is always a bit of a challenging culinary destination for me, primarily since I mostly seem to end up staying in suburbs like Beavercreek, and I’m really not into places like The Olive Garden. But it’s also not a culinary wasteland. I actually rather like The Pine Club, which is one of those olde schoole steak houses that still seems to be stuck at some point in the 1960s. And, as I mentioned before in my review of Maharajah of Dayton, thriving Indian community (primarily Punjabi), and as a result, quite a few decent Indian restaurants, although most of them seem to focus on buffets. But a few of them do indeed have some rather good food, and from two visits there, I can say that Jeet is one of the better ones.

After a morning spent looking at the most excellent native art collections at the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix, as well as having a quick trip over to Wes Bolin Plaza to look at the various memorials, we decided that we needed a quick lunch. Luckily, Phoenix has the same, healthy taco truck economy that I’ve come to expect from any major Southwestern city. Easy to miss the place, since you can’t directly see the truck from the street without eagle eyes, since they’ve ensconced it in several blue tarps to make a seating area of a few rickety tables and chairs (as well as a place to get out of the sun). The truck itself makes one wall of the dining area, so you wander up to the window and place your order, and then hang out and relax as they assemble it…

You can’t miss it, it’s written right on the window, “The World’s Best Ice Cream,” according to the New York Times. That should impress me, but it really doesn’t. It’s hyperbole, and the NYTimes does it a lot in their food reviews. Many Boston-area friends also have told me it’s “the best in the world”, but Boston folks have a horrible pattern of saying “the world” when they really mean “Boston”. More importantly, however, my friend Eddy (who has impeccable taste when it comes to desserts) also claims it’s best in the world, so, while I’ve had (and enjoyed) Tosci’s ice cream before, I felt obligated to come and review it again…

(Moved) I’ve just returned from a trip to the Twin Cities. As a former resident, it’s interesting seeing the places that have popped up since my last visit. Unlike other areas where it has died out, the Coffee Revolution is still in full swing, with both the number of independent coffee houses and locally-founded or -based chains (Caribou and Dunn Bros) on the upswing. More interesting to me, however, is that a number of good chocolate places have apparently cropped up in the Twin Cities as well. Particularly, we ran across Legacy Chocolates…