Hello, people!
So today is a really exciting day
because I am going to be eating a lot of ice cream.
Now I have tried tons of cool ice cream flavors in the past.
I've tried really fancy ice cream,
giant ice cream, ice cream with interesting toppings,
and today, I am on the hunt
to find the best ice cream in Los Angeles.
So I have been scouring the internet
to find everyone's recommendations
of what ice cream parlors I should try.
I read Yelp and a bunch of articles,
and I've narrowed down the final four
that, weirdly enough, I haven't tried before.
So those four are:
Sweet Rose Creamery,
Mashti Malone's,
Wanderlust Creamery
and Fosselman's Ice Cream.
So without further ado,
let this ice cream journey begin.
Our first stop on our ice cream journey
is here at Sweet Rose Creamery.
Sweet Rose Creamery has been here since 2010,
and they were founded right here in Santa Monica
with a total of five locations
throughout Los Angeles.
So what's really cool is that
they're using all fresh ingredients
from the Santa Monica's Farmer's Market,
and it's coming right here to the ice cream shop
where they're making the ice cream fresh daily,
and it comes straight to the counter
and into your waffle cone.
In the kitchen, everything is made from scratch,
starting from fresh eggs
right down to the dairy base.
We watched them prepare their classic
mint chip ice cream.
The shop is always changing up its seasonal flavors.
All right, so we have the mint chip ice cream
that we made in a waffle bowl covered in sprinkles.
The flavor of the mint really pops out at you
more than the cream.
I think it's because we're using
really, really fresh ingredients.
It's not like the artificial mint flavors
that you find in gum or you find in other ice cream.
You get the fresh flavor,
but it is not overwhelmingly minty.
Now it's time to visit Mashti Malone's Ice Cream.
Mashti and Mehdi Shirvani
are credited for introducing Persian ice cream to LA.
I'm Mashti Shirvani, the older brother.
I came here before the the revolution in Iran.
In 1980, I opened this business.
I had little savings. I bought the business
from the landlord,
and I started making ice cream for local Iranians.
Every single person, I was giving them samples,
that's how I built my business.
Mehdi: We don't create, like, weird flavors.
It's mostly floral or fruit-based or herbal-based,
things like that.
Some of our ingredients come from overseas
from different countries.
We get ingredients from Iran
if there is no sanction.
From the Persian Gulf area, from Lebanon,
from India, we get so many herbs and spices.
Caroline: The best seller:
the saffron pistachio rose water ice cream.
The shop uses imported saffron from Iran.
Mehdi: Right now there is a sanction,
but right before the sanction,
we bought enough for the next couple of years.
Caroline: They grind the saffron
and put it in hot water overnight.
It's mainly used for the color of the ice cream.
Mashti: These are my food colorings,
all natural.
Caroline: But it's natural.
Mashti: Yeah, everything is natural, yeah.
Caroline: They sprinkle their secret herb blend
into every ice cream.
Mashti: Just a little, that's all.
Not much sugar.
Caroline: The key ingredient is the rose water.
Mehdi: Rose was very unusual and unknown
to American cuisine.
They'd never heard of rose water.
So it took him and us so much sampling
and kind of lecturing about the ingredients
so those who were not familiar with the flavor
to kinda accept that rose can be eaten too.
It's just like vanilla.
But the thing is, vanilla is more popular here,
rose is more popular in other parts of the world.
Caroline: And finally, they add the pistachios.
So we're gonna try the classic Mashti ice cream sandwich.
This is two wafers with saffron ice cream
rolled in pistachios.
This is their most popular flavor for years,
and I'm really excited to taste it.
It's really nice 'cause you get little chunks of pistachios
that were blended into the ice cream
but also whole pistachios all around the sides.
It kinda gives that nice balance from the creamy ice cream
to the crunchy pistachio.
The texture, this gets an A-plus.
It is just creamy and stretchy.
It's just so satisfying, wow, mm.
From Hollywood to Tarzana,
it's time to try Wanderlust Creamery.
Wanderlust Creamery is an artisanal ice cream shop,
and all of our flavors are inspired by travel.
We've been in LA now for about three years.
I'll think of a place I've been
or somewhere I wanna go.
I'm inspired by childhood memories
and also other peoples' travels.
When my friends come back from different places,
they tell me about, "Oh, my God, I had this amazing dessert
in Sardinia" or "I had this ice cream flavor in Japan."
And then I'll do a little bit of research,
and then I'll go from there.
Caroline: Some of the the flavors include
Sticky Rice and Mango inspired by Thailand,
Japanese Neapolitan,
Smoky Road inspired by the Pacific Northwest,
Pretzel Rúgbrauð inspired by Iceland,
and passionfruit and cacao inspired by Brazil.
We watched them prepare one of the seasonal flavors,
Breakfast at Café Du Monde, inspired by New Orleans.
For the Breakfast at Café Du Monde,
they steep the ice cream base with French roast coffee
and Café Du Monde chicory coffee.
Then, they mix the ice cream with pieces of fried beignets.
Wow, this is really good.
It is a very strong coffee flavor.
If you love coffee ice cream,
this is like 10 steps higher than that.
The bitterness of the coffee
really balances out the sweetness of the ice cream.
What I'm really here to see is the Flight Around the World.
It's a sampler that includes
a variety of 14 flavors on mini cones.
I'm really interested in the Ube Malted Crunch
from the Philippines.
Wow.
Raspberry Lychee Rose Sorbet from Paris.
This isn't really citrusy. This is more fruity, I would say.
It's very floral. It's very light on your palate,
but the flavor is very strong.
This is a very powerful matcha flavor,
really good, really, really good.
Adrienne: Artisanal ice cream's really big in the city,
but we're one of the few artisanal ice cream shops
that are actually from LA.
So I think that resonates with a lot of Angelinos.
- I'm, like, a big Yelp person,
so I, like, Yelped it.
- Yeah, this place got amazing reviews.
- Yeah, it has really good reviews,
and it definitely lives up to the hype, honestly.
It's really good.
- I got Ube and Violet Marshmallow.
I just love all the different flavors
and how it's like around the world,
and they all taste extremely good.
Adrienne: LA's a big mixing pot of cultures,
and we just wanna have something for everybody.
Caroline: And last but not least,
we're visiting one of the oldest ice cream shops in LA:
Fosselman's Ice Cream Company.
If you love watching old-timey movies
and visiting historical spots,
this is your place.
Christian Fosselman started Fosselman's Ice Cream Company
in 1919 in Waverly, Iowa.
In 1921, he moved his business to sunny California.
Today, the ice cream parlor
still remains a family business.
The minute you step inside,
it's like walking into an old-fashioned
soda fountain shop
that includes candy, saltwater taffy,
swirled lollipops, and a bunch of historical memorabilia
along the walls.
And the ice cream,
well, that's literally a labor of love.
John: We make a whole huge variety of ice creams.
We do probably 200-plus flavors.
And so we work with chefs from country clubs,
hotels, restaurants, things like that.
So they'll come up with unique ideas
of something they might want on their menu,
and then we also listen to a lot of our customers
in the retail stores.
Because of the diversity of LA,
you know, we've changed a lot of flavors
we never thought we'd make.
So we do a lot of Asian flavors.
We do taro root, lychee, black sesame, red bean.
Do a lot of Latin flavors: horchata, Oaxacan chocolate,
dulche de leche.
So that's kind of reflected a lot
of probably the last 20, 30 years
of where we've kinda changed or modified what we do,
and then we still do all the old-fashioned, you know,
English toffee, lemon custard, rum raisin,
things like that.
So it kind of has just evolved over time.
Caroline: All the ice cream is made in-house.
Once the ice cream is ready,
two employees simultaneously
add and mix the additional ingredients.
This keeps the ingredients like
chocolate chips, cookie dough,
red velvet cake, and maraschino cherries
from breaking into tiny pieces.
John: My dad always used to say,
"Make it so good they can't resist it,"
and I think it's because we haven't changed our ingredients
as far as cheapening things.
We've always stayed true to a superpremium ice cream,
which is 16% butterfat,
never compromised quality.
Caroline: We got a classic banana split.
I figured it would be the best thing to get
at a classic ice cream parlor.
Classic, so good.
I love when places get the classic flavors right.
Like, you can't really be a good ice cream place
if you can't get strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla perfect
'cause those are probably like the most popular flavors.
John: There's been so many generations that come in
where we've seen parents bringing their little kids in
who end up working for us
as like a second- or third-generation employee.
We just remodeled for our 100th anniversary,
and it's kinda this give-and-take
where people are like, "Don't change anything."
We want it to look like it did 50 years ago,
but you have to evolve with time too.
But it's that historical thing
that they wanna remember what it was like
when they were 10 or 15, and now they're 50.
So it's cool that we've seen that transpire over the years.
I feel like I'm on a movie set
for the 1950s, 1960s.
It's kinda like being in a time machine
the minute you step into the ice cream parlor.
So I've had some time
to think about all the ice cream
that I've eaten, and now it's the hardest part
because I have to pick a favorite, and I really can't.
All the places that we visited were so delicious
and so unique from one another.
I'm really happy I have, like, four new places to try.
But we have to pick a favorite,
so let's narrow them down.
The first place we tried was Sweet Rose Creamery,
and I think they did the best job
incorporating the freshest ingredients into their ice cream.
I'd compare their ice cream to a smoothie
because of the fresh mint or citrus that they used
rather than tasting like artificial flavors
you can taste from store-bought ice cream.
For Mashti Malone, they definitely had the most unique
ice cream flavors like saffron rose water,
date, and lavender.
The shop also felt so authentic to LA.
It's one of the older ones on our list,
and it still has that simple, homey feel to it.
For Wanderlust, I loved their Flight Around the World.
I think it's such a genius concept
to include mini ice cream cones from all over the world.
It's definitely a really fun ice cream tasting experience.
And Fosselman's by far has the most interesting
ice cream making process I've seen.
They claim to make everything the old-fashioned way,
and that's exactly what they did in the kitchen
and out at the counter when you order.
But this is the best of the best in Los Angeles,
and if I had to pick a winner out of those four,
it has to be
Mashti Malone.
So Mashti Malone's obviously had the most unique flavors
I have ever tried,
and while the ice cream was sweet,
all the flavors really came through,
like the rose water in the saffron ice cream,
or like rich cocoa in the chocolate.
So I loved their specialty flavors,
and I loved their classic flavors.
Mashti Malone's is such a uniquely LA shop
that you can only find here.
You can get great ice cream anywhere,
but if you wanna find the best in LA,
you have to go to Mashti's.
But that being said,
these four places are literally the best in LA,
so you're not losing if you go to any of these places,
and I think you should try all of them.
And the good thing is is that they're all in different parts
of LA, and if you live in LA or have been to LA,
you know getting around town is really annoying,
so it's really nice that I have four new ice cream places
to go to no matter where I am in LA.