Matt of Scoops Westside, aka the Enabler

I’ve been on the wagon for a little over a month now. No Trader Joe’s peppermint Jo-Jos, no egg nog and certainly no Scoops ice cream. I decided to start this little dessert strike December 1st. In a cruel twist of fate, this was also the same day that Matt Kang opened his Scoops Westside shop.

Matt making coffee the Intelligentsia way.

That didn’t stop me from visiting the new Westside location of one of the best ice cream shops in L.A. After all, it’s in my hood, my blogger buds hang out there and Matt also sells Intelligentsia tea and coffee, pour-over and not from some automatic coffee machine.

Plus, here you can get the same Kenya Gichathaini for a dollar less than at Intelligentsia and you won’t have to stand in a long line of hipsters for it either.

Yet, every time I went into the shop, Matt would entice me with an empty gelato spoon, “You sure you don’t even want a taste?” One time, after I declined his offer yet again, he dipped the small spoon into the salted caramel ice cream, put it in his mouth and withdrew it with an “Mmmm!” Yeah, so mean, but I managed to resist temptation.

We then made a deal. I’d end my dessert strike at Scoops Westside. “Which flavor would you like?” he asked me. And instantly I knew, “wasabi/coconut,” a flavor I first fell in love with back when I had visited the eastside location for the craft beer week preview. Oddly enough, this flavor isn’t exactly popular so Matt would have to special order it from Tai Kim, the “Thomas Keller of ice cream” and owner of the original Scoops.

What got me back on sweets.

I guess not many people can appreciate this beautiful, exotic mixture of flavors. The coconut sweetens and soothes the burn incited by the wasabi. Would be just perfect after a spicy Thai lunch.

Matt had the ice cream ready for me yesterday so even though I’m suffering from an irritating cold, I still made a point to swing by and pick up a pint, courtesy of Matt. But instead of just the original duo, Tai had thrown in some white chocolate. At the store, I tentatively tasted the new flavor combination. I usually hate white chocolate. And here it just seemed to mute the wasabi heat. But Matt assured me that after continual consumption the burn would become apparent. Cool! I enjoy a slow burn.

Sure enough, the more I ate, the more spiciness unfolded. Now, this, I could eat a whole pint of. If you’re intrigued, better grab yourself a scoop of this good stuff now before it disappears this week since there’s no telling when it’ll return.

From Mattatouille:

…this is good ol’ ice cream, that old fashioned treat of Haagen Daas and Baskin-Robbins fame, but with a new twist – more innovative flavors and a bit of a lighter composition.

By the way, if you have some crazy ice cream flavor combos of your own swimming around in your feverish foodie dreams, Matt’s store has the same “Flavors to Suggest” board that the original location has. On there you’ll find the scribblings of mad men and food enthusiasts. “Foie gras and cherry”? “Habanero pistachio”? Wuut?

Tai will visit the board once a week and ponder the suggestions. Some will inspire him, while others will be dismissed. For example, he wouldn’t ever do a foie gras ice cream again as it’s too controversial. As for what I’d suggest? I’m curious what bourbon and ginger would taste like.

Scoops Westside
3400 Overland Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90034 (map)
Hours: Mon – Sat: 12pm-10pm
Facebook: Scoops Westside
Twitter: @ScoopsWestside

Rosa Mexicano's ice cream

As a fan of ice cream and a huuuge fan of Scoops, there’s not much more you can surprise me with in terms of how my favorite frozen treat is served or the flavors it’s offered in. I’ve had it in beer, fried, nitrogenated and foie gras flavored. So, yes, when I was invited to the beer and ice cream social at Rosa Mexicano in Downtown to check out the restaurant’s annual ice cream festival, “Festival de Helados,” I admit it, I shrugged. But once I actually read the flavors being offered at this little media party I rsvp’d asap.

The festival, which celebrates the flavors of Mexico, runs through August 1 and til then you can choose from 7 ice creams and 3 sorbets (farmed out from Milk Ice Cream Shop on Beverly Boulevard), 6 house-made toppings and 3 ice cream desserts. Think of all the flavor combination possibilities! But at this social they were making some special off-the-menu beer floats (about $8 each) which paired whatever ice cream flavor we wanted with either the Modelo Especiale (light) or the Negro Modelo (dark) beers.

FYI, there are other beers available — Corona, Dos Equis, Pacifico, Tecate — but Chef John England felt that the Modelo brews would pair with the ice cream the best. And he was right. The Especiale was perfect with the pucker-inducing tomatillo-lime sorbet, soothing away that tartiness as it would with a lime wedge. The richer Negro paired awesomely with the Mexican chocolate as well as the cinnamon chocolate cookies and cream.

Naturally, there were some flavors on the menu that I wasn’t exactly over the moon about, like the astringent hibiscus pomegranate sorbet and the Mexican chocolate and the blueberry crema which were just OK, not really standing out for me. But I did find the creamy and caramelly sea salted cajeta and the unusual sweet corn and caramel popcorn intriguing. However, my ultimate favorite had to be the pomegranate mint fudge swirl which offered an unusual flavor combination that actually worked here. I thought that the pomegranate and mint would meld together in a cough syrupy taste sensation but it was actually pretty mellow enough where I could still enjoy the chocolate chips. Yummy! I don’t think I’d douse beer on this one though.

If you’d like to try these unusual, festive flavors, you better get thee to Rosa Mexicano right quick before the festival ends in a couple weeks as none of these ice creams and sorbets will be carried over onto the regular menu. Not that the regular menu isn’t worth looking at, after all it has flavors like Mexican chocolate mole sorbet, prickly pear and blueberry sorbet and coffee-Kahlua. Mmm!

UPDATE: Rosa Mexicano decided to keep the pomegranate mint fudge swirl on the regular menu post-festival! Nope, I didn’t have anything to do with that. Apparently every year there is usually one flavor that stays on as it’s the most popular, and this time it was the pom-mint so after this past Saturday’s cooking demo the chefs decided to keep it. Yay!

Hit the jump for the festival menu…