We left the city yesterday and spent the entire day in—gasp—Berkeley. Sweetie accompanied for a little business trip and then we spent the rest of the day exploring the East Bay in our Zipcar. We “discovered” Tilden Park (we even rode the Steam Train) and wandered around Rockridge.
More importantly we made a point to stop at Ici before we left the East Bay. Ici is the Bi-Rite Creamery of Berkeley. The ice cream is made on site, there is a long queue of people waiting to get the goods, and they have rotating assortment of foodie flavors like Early Gray, Rose Pistachio and Chipotle Chocolate Chip, and Saffron/Orange Blossom. Other notables: Bombes (bowl-molded ice cream cakes), house made cones, bon bons, malts, and of course, ice cream sundaes.
We had a scoop of the Carmel Vanilla and Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookie with caramel sauce. The Carmel Vanilla reminded us of Bi-Rite’s Salted Carmel and the Oatmeal had nice chunks of cookie and raisins. Sweetie had the Carmel Vanilla and Chocolate Chip with chocolate fudge. We thought the chocolate fudge was amazing, but we wanted the chocolate ice cream to be a bit more chocolatey.
Ici is solid ice cream. Clearly a no –brainer if you’re in the Claremont/Elmwood region of Berkeley or actually any part of the East Bay for that matter.
Bi-Rite Creamery [MenuPages]
Bi-Rite Creamery [Official Site]
[Photo: Catalan ice cream from Ici, via applesister/flickr]
