Letters to the Editor
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And Dairy Queen is dying.
One of the two known Dairy Queen restaurants in this town has been bulldozed. The other is on a side street that makes it nearly invisible. It didn't help that the restaurant was damaged during the hurricanes, and suffered Blue Roof Syndrome (tarps instead of shingle repair).
The traditional Dairy Queen ice cream was good and flavorful, and made terrific sundaes. Their big problem was when they tried to become a full-service restaurant with their "fine Brazier food." Namely, standard food-service hamburgers and hot dogs, fried up greasy on a grill and served with indifference. If they had brought the same quality control to their meals as they did to their ice cream, they'd probably still be in business and giving the hamburger chains a run for their money.
Now I have to put up with those tasteless, awful, Havrilesky-priced Cold Stone ice cream sundaes. Or sit at home and mush up French vanilla ice cream into something approximating soft-serve myself.
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Is...
there anything you people won't complain about?
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THANK YOU
I thought I was the only one who hated Coldstone. Two visits were enough for me, the last straw being when I merely wanted a small mint chip (simple enough, right?), and the hyperactive guy behind the counter screeched "You HATE me! You HATE me!" both when I declined to upgrade the size AND when I insisted that yes, I really did just want chips and nothing else.
But I still couldn't figure out why, when I can easily polish off a pint of B&J in a sitting, I wasn't able to finish either of the "small" servings I had at both trips to Coldstone, and why one of them left me feeling ill. Thanks for confirming that there's something flat-out wrong with that ice cream, or whatever it is. Another issue- when you mix regular candies and things that aren't meant to be frozen into ice cream, they can be unpleasant to eat. The chocolate chips mixed into that mint chip I ordered became rock hard and I ended up digging them out in order to spare my teeth.. until I finally threw the whole thing away.
Also, just so it's not confused with Coldstone and similar places, I can confirm that the aforementioned Herrell's, in Allston MA, rocks.
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Gotta Leave It
There is a Coldstone two blocks from our house. You know there is a problem when my 5-year-old son prefers to walk eight blocks to the nearest Ben and Jerry's rather than eat that dolled-up library paste Coldstone calls ice cream. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Coldstone is flat-out disgusting.
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no wonder
A friend of mine and I grabbed a snack at Coldstone in the Mall of America one evening because he gushed and raved about how good it was. I myself am a die-hard fan of plain-ole vanilla, and the most exciting thing I've ever gotten in the ice cream department is an Oreo Blizzard from DQ. So I opted for the pumpkin pie shake (it was around the holidays) while my friend got some kind of monstrous concoction. My shake was pretty good, but I tried his thing and I almost gagged... it was like pure corn syrup mixed with candy. Way too sweet, nasty consistency. He seemed to love it, though. Which is weird, because this is a kid who thinks that carrots are sweet candy and refuses to eat cake with sugary frosting. I don't know what it is about Coldstone, but I will stick to the medium vanilla cone from DQ I've gotten since my dad got them for us when I was 5.
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Give Me the Vanila... at Home, Please!
Like Mr. Peters, I have also noticed this proliferation of creme whippery, and notably in my suburban ventures throughout several western states beyond my home in Los Angeles.
And I'd like to add my own "mix-in" ingredients here: most notably, the recent proliferation of neo-frozen yogurt establishments such as Pinkberry here in LaLa Land. Taking a cue from the "experiential" or "immersive" cues of the "lifestyle" oriented Starbucks, with pages ripped from Wallpaper Magazine, each location is designed to the nth degree, with the right chairs, the right paint, the right music, etc. Pinkberry is so much more about "buzz" and "hype" as it is about the actual product: basic, bland frozen yogurt and the "mix-ins." (You can get the green tea version, but that's pretty innoculous as well.) One is so busy absorbing the noise, the decor, and the line out the door, that one forgets that what is being consumed can be done so much more cheaply and more interestingly at home.
My impression is that it is basically like an overhyped romantic encounter: promising on the surface, but leaving much to be desired.
And it's been done before... It's an 80s concept with a new millenium capitalist twist.
Give me the vanilla... at home, please!
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Amy's
Allow me to chime in with my fellow Austinites regarding Amy's, where yes indeedy you can just enjoy the Ice Cream without the trimmings, but they also do the smash-ins as well. (I personally like the Junior Mints smashed in to the Dark Chocolate, but to each their own.)
You know Amy's is different because the folks doing the serving are classic Austinites to the point where one worker--heavily tatooed and pierced--told me when I asked that the TSA people questioned him every day when he came to work at the Amy's at Austin-Bergstrom Airport branch, even though he's there 3-4 days a week. At Amy's, they don't have Corporate Smiles; they have piercings and flavor recommendations ("No, no; try the Mexican Vanilla with the Reese Cups; that's what I like.").
But "Coldstone Creamery." I mean, what do you expect when a company names itself "Coldstone?" Yeesh.
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Coldstone
They advertise the "show" their employees put on in mixing the ice cream, feats of dexterity that can be matched by any preschooler and surpassed by any teppanyaki chef.
This is perhaps the greatest example of hyperbole in the entire history of the universe. I've been to Coldstone exactly once during a visit to Oxford, OH, and the dude was throwing scoops of ice cream in the air and catching them behind his back. Many preschoolers are missing limbs, on the other hand, and are therefore incapable of matching such feats.