Movenpick, Zurich ice cream boutique review

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to Switzerland for work. My first night was spent in Zurich and after two days of rushing around to different meetings I decided it was time for an ice cream break.

It being my first time in the city I had no idea where to go for my treat, then I happened across the Zurich Movenpick Boutique on Theatrestrasse close to the opera house.

Please post below if you have an ice cream recommendation for Zurich, or any city in the UK, Europe or the world! I'm travelling to Istanbul, Italy and the Netherlands soon, so lots of scope for ice cream discovery from those places.

I know that you can buy Movenpick in the UK but the tagline 'The art of Swiss ice cream' worked on me, as did the temptation of more than 30 different flavours of ice cream and sorbets as advertised below!

The verdict: Mmmmmmm chocolate

 

Price: 4.00 CHF for one scoop in a cone (so, a bit expensive)

Flavour: Swiss chocolate (of course)

 

The scoop was generous, the service was  quick and friendly, the ice cream was great (with large shavings of quality Swiss chocolate throughout) and served in a homemade waffle dough cone (I think the best I've tasted for some time).

Check out the ice cream menu here and the Movenpick website.

itsu zero fat fro-go frozen yoghurt review

Sometimes I get so desperate for cold creamy food that I end up trying the first thing I see and today I spotted someone leaving itsu with what looked like ice cream. I was in there immediately to investigate.

It turned out to be frozen yoghurt on sale. This known in itsu as the fro-go.

I'm not so hot on frozen yoghurt as I am on ice cream. Yes, no doubt it's the healthier option, but when has health ever been the point of ice cream? I do however like the novelty of specialist frozen yoghurt shops where you can add countless toppings to pimp up your dessert.

itsu is clearly marketing fro-go to the healthy (or inspiring to be healthy), using a zero fat message. These small displays are on each till at the moment. Clearly someone at HQ has noticed that it's been warmer recently. Look closely. Does anyone really think that the skinny girls in bikinis are needed to get this message across? I'd be interested in your views on that one.

 



I bought my frozen yoghurt, but was not sure what to add as a extra so I asked the server for her recommendation. I like it when the staff are clearly eating and enjoying the food they sell, and this was the case today. Caramel and strawberries were suggested but I was also warned that an extra topping would cost me another 49p. Feeling I had to reject the body image marketing, I opted just for warm caramel sauce (in-house menus tell me this equals 145 calories and 1.3g of fat).

The verdict

Expensive, but then itsu is expensive fast food
I ordered:
Size: one size @ £2.99 (extra 49p for each additional topping)
Flavour(s): naked fro-go plus warm caramel sauce

There's no denying that the frozen yoghurt is good, as is the caramel sauce which, being warm, makes a lovely addition to the treat. You get a lot of it too, all in a handy pot.


Click here for the full fro-go menu.

G&D - George&Danver review, St Aldate's, Oxford

Today's wonderful weather marked the start of the ice cream season for me. It also marked my first visit to a G&D café.

Oxford is lucky to have three G&D establishments. The city centre one is located on St Aldate's. I'll cover the other two (on Cowley Road and in Jericho, in later reviews - any excuse). I haven't lived in Oxford for long so I asked a couple of locals if they could recommend somewhere in the city centre for ice cream and they were stumped. And so I had to resort to google to see my options.

George&Danver was the closest ice cream place to me. It's a self-styled ice cream café, offering mainly ice cream but branching out into teas, coffees and snack food. You can see on the photo below that there was a queue coming out the door. Always surely a good sign that something worth waiting for is afoot (and that the weather is good).

Inside, the café had a nice feel. It was a sunny day and it seemed very light. It was clean, but as it was busy there were a few tables which needed to be cleared. For those who prefer to sit outside, there are tables outdoors with a great view of Christchurch and the passing bus and taxi traffic.

I've always loved ice cream. If I had to choose a last supper, ice cream would definitely feature. Flavour-wise I'm a fruit fiend and I always enjoy a fruity flavoured ice. But what I like to see the most are more unusual flavours on offer. I can never resist gooseberry and I wish more ice cream places in the UK would follow the Italian model and always offer pistachio. You will discover my favourite taste combinations in later blogs.

G&D were offering no less than 12 flavours, pretty good going for artisanal ice cream in the UK. All of the standards were on offer (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and coffee), along with some more unusual flavours (oreo, blackcurrant and honey, millionaire shortbread). The cold stuff is created in their Jericho branch and they say that ice cream is still at the heart of their business and they strive to use the best ingredients, which combined with a special technique makes ice cream with a 'superior taste and texture'.

As a nice touch, there were also petitions available where you can request a specific or new flavour. The blurb said that if they get 30 signatures they will consider offering it. I couldn't think of ideas so let me know if you have any favourites. Do you prefer chocolate or fruit? Does anyone really like vanilla?

The ice cream comes as standard in pretty Friesian cow pattern tubs, with an extra charge for a cone and the additional option of toppings (M&Ms, gummy bears, chocolate sprinkles).

The verdict

Expensive, but worth the money I paid
I ordered:
Size: 2 scoops @ £3.35 (extra 30p for a cone)
Flavour(s): Oreo and Blackcurrant & honey

The service was excellent, the staff were friendly and apologetic about the wait. The ice cream itself was obviously freshly made. The Oreo flavour was very tasty with big chunks of biscuit and was more geared towards the white/cream part of the biscuit than the chocolate side, a bit different from other attempts at oreo ice creams I've tried. For me this was a plus. The blackcurrant was very colourful, with a good texture with some of the fruit visible. It was very creamy and I would have liked it a little sharper and more frozen. It was actually labelled blackberry in the fridge and I also wondered if it wasn't actually made from blueberries instead! As you can see from the photo, the scoops were generous.

http://www.gdcafe.com/website/index.php

The Ice Cream Woman Cometh

Do you love ice cream as much as I do? If so, you are in for a treat with the Ice Cream Woman Cometh's blog.

This weekend's beautiful weather hopefully marked the start of an early spring/summer and the beginning of the ice cream season.

My aim is to visit various ice cream establishments and sample the flavours they have on offer and to let you know the good and the bad news. I'll also be tasting the frozen treats on offer at well-known supermarkets to let you know what I recommend you buy for your dessert course, or what to enjoy while you slob-out in front of the TV.

So let me know if you have any suggestions of places to visit (either towns or ice cream meccas). You can email me or feel free to comment on a post. Your feedback would be wonderful at any time.