Say hello to yet another Berkeley shop that’ll tickle your sweet tooth–Tara’s Organic Ice Cream on College and Alcatraz avenues. Just blocks from massively popular ice cream shop, Ici, Tara’s threatens to throw it down with our resident bougie dessert stop with four five-star reviews on Yelp following its Sunday opening. Visitors are raving about the crazy flavors concocted by the New Mexico-based Tara Esperanza, some of which include garam masala or green chile. read more »

Remember the days when you could walk into a cafe, find a stranger to talk to and say, “isn’t it great how Cal produces more Ph.D. hopefuls for U.S. doctoral programs than any other university … in the WORLD?” Neither do we. But the point is that those days are over.

It’s not that we lost our No. 1 spot to Stanford or Harvard, which might be forgivable, but to two foreign institutions—Beijing and Tsinghua Universities, says The Mercury News. read more »

We have ice cream in our eyes, on our brain, and now we’re ready to get it in our bellies. Tuesday marks Ben & Jerry’s celebrated Free Cone Day, a verifiable cream dream. The store on Oxford Street would be your best bet to snag a scoop anytime between 12 p.m. and 8 p.m.

If after Ben and Jerry’s you’re still not satisfied with your frozen freebie, Cold Stone is another option. The mix-in creamery offers free servings on your birthday–if you subscribe to their list/club. Eight ounces of a Signature Creation in exchange for an inbox of promo e-mails? Oh, it’s such a joy to be a summer baby.

And not to be out done, there’s Ici. No, there’s no giveaway there, but we do hear that milkshakes will occasionally make appearances as daily specials. It’s like the world of ice cream wants us to eat it all up (or slurp it down).

Image Source: Amy the Nurse under Creative Commons
Ben&Jerry’s 30th annual FREE CONE DAY! [Facebook]
Cold Stone Creamery Birthday Club [Cold Stone]

With one blogger on vacation, we decided to vacay ourselves and indulge in some gelato and artisan ice cream. Our bellies rumbling and one mind reeling over its imminent midterm, we set forth to go where no blogger has gone before.

OK, so we’re pretty sure people have eaten this shit before. But we sampled the craziest, weirdest and most exotic flavors we could find. And now we’re telling you how it is. Listen up, son.

Glide on …

First we drove down to 4th Street ’cause we’re lazy. We sat down at Sketch, which specializes in hand-crafted ice cream. It’s a little gourmet, if we do say so ourselves.

Earl Grey tea, $3.50

Skyler Reid: Sketch is not, in fact, sketch.
Gerald Nicdao: This isn’t Earl Grey tea. They lied.
Christine Borden: This would taste good with caramel.
SR: Sadly, they don’t have caramel here. They only have burnt caramel. It’s more expensive … Why are we eating with sticks?

Overall, a smooth, rich flavor, but with an odd and too-sweet aftertaste.
Quality of snooty dairy product: 7/10
Flavor with the most syllables: organic coffee granita
——

Next the Clog beetled over to Shattuck Avenue’s Gourmet Ghetto, where we found Ciao Bella Gelato. Oh God, that place smelled so good.

Carrot ginger, $3.95

GN: Doesn’t taste like anything.
SR: Spicy.
GN: I don’t taste that.
CB: I don’t taste the carrot. Oh. Now I taste the carrot. Tricky. Oh. It was like a ginger attack.
GN: I CAN’T TASTE THE CARROT!

Not as smooth as Sketch’s ice cream.
Quality of snooty dairy product: 6/10
Flavor with the most syllables: Straccitella chocolate chip gelato
——

We headed over to the Berkeley BART area on Shattuck to hit up Gelato Milano, which proved to be more exciting than its plain white exterior led us to believe.

Crem caramel, $3.00

CB: If baby flesh were to taste like anything, it would taste like this.
SR: It would be saltier.
GN: It’d taste like bacon … I still can’t taste the carrots.

Milano had the perfect gelato consistency, and the flavor wasn’t overpowering.
Quality of snooty dairy product: 8/10
Flavor with the most syllables: Mandorla tostata
——

Gelateria Naia was just a block away on Shattuck. We were suprised to find it, well, sucked. Then again, our flavor was tad ballsy.

Whole grains, $3.25

SR: Maybe it’s a good source of fiber
CB: Is that good for the anal stage?
SR: Are you coming on to me?
CB: OK, who wants to finish this one?
GN & SR: Not me.
SR: Fine, I’ll do it.

Accurate flavor, we’ll give them that. Too stiff and dry.
Quality of snooty dairy product: 4/10
Flavor with the most syllables: Madagascar vanilla, cantucci e vin santo and chocolate peanut butter
——

Our last stop was, like last time, on College Avenue. We said bonjour to Ici, a French ice cream parlor and bakery. Dude, they even had Baked Alaska.

Chicory, $2.75

SR: Definitely points for having real spoons. Bendable spoons. Oh my God, they are the perfect flicking spoon. Hey, Gerald, catch!
CB: These spoons are nice!
GN: Amazing! Can you break ‘em? … Kinda looks like sperm.
Skyler breaks his own spoon

Spoons aside, the ice cream had the perfect texture for its class. The flavor, however, was a bit too heavy on the spices and clung to our palates.
Quality of snooty dairy product: 7/10
Flavor with the most syllables: Lemon amarena cherry

Earlier: Crawling Berkeley: A Better Cuppa Joe