I admit it. I got caught up in the fad and went out to purchase the local and much talked about, Earnest Ice Cream. NatureGirl and I went to Woodland Smokehouse on Commercial Drive just to get our hands on these babies and to be honest, if we had known the price beforehand, we probably wouldn't have gotten it.
Earnest Ice Cream is the dessert child of Ben Earnest and Erica Bernardi who decided one day to create an ice cream business that focuses on local ingredients and unique delectable flavours. Some flavours include Roasted Rhubarb Oat Crumble, Oatmeal Brown Sugar, Lavender, Cardamom, and White Peach Brown Butter.
The ice-cream comes in a cute little glass jar which is quite unusual for ice cream and if you return it, you can get $1 back. Though the concept is cool, I still find it overpriced even after returning the jar because it was $11.50 to begin with. For a jar of ice-cream the size of a Ben and Jerry's tub (~500ml), I thought it was WAY too expensive.
We were limited in our choices at Woodland Smokehouse but NatureGirl decided on the
Lavender flavour and I stuck with the famous
Salted Caramel. The lavendar was quite fragrant on the palate yet not overly 'flowery' in a sense where you feel like you're eating a handful of flowers. The salted caramel flavour was indeed a great balance of sweet and savoury though for me personally, it was on the brink of being too sweet.
To give you a sense of how small the jar is, it is literally as tall as my iPhone 4.
Overall, I think the reason why I am not impressed by this local gourmet ice-cream is because I had no inclination of how pricey it would be before I bought it, and the flavours that were available at Smokehouse were not strange or unique enough for me to feel like it's worth paying $11.50 for. As a self proclaimed adventurous eater, I think I would be far more likely to pay a little extra for a flavour I have never encountered before in an ice-cream like Blackberry Black Pepper or Blue Cheese & Fig. Maybe, just maybe, I will give them a second try when the actual location opens up on Fraser Street because they are bound to have more cool interesting flavours.
Service Rating:
N/A
Food Rating:
3/5
Price:
$$
Overall Rating: 3/5
Happy Eating!
It's a small but very real frustration: you want a chilled drink, but you open the freezer only to see nothing but empty ice trays. Fortunately, there's a simple way to make ice cubes quickly—use hot water. Yup, you read that correctly. Hot water freezes more rapidly than cold. Myrian Barocio
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