They also have a mobile cart and create custom flavors for events, including weddings. “That’s what we do, lots of collaborations,” explains Pollack. That’s because Pollack and Meers create exclusive flavors for some businesses-in Richmond, you’ll only find s’mores ice cream sandwiches at the Graduate Hotel, and in Virginia Beach, Waterman’s Surfside Grill alone carries Pollack and Meers’ riff on the restaurant’s Orange Crush drink, which pairs cream cheese ice cream mixed with orange marmalade and brown sugar cookies. PFG currently distributes the brand in Virginia and the Carolinas, and will begin distributing throughout the Mid-Atlantic this spring.īut you won’t find every flavor in every retail location selling Nightingale. in 2009, had from running kitchens first at Belle Vie European Bistro and then Brux’l that helped them strike a deal with Performance Food Group. It was the industry connections that 40-year-old Meers, who was born in Brussels and first came to the U.S. “We don’t want to burn our wings,” laughs Meers. Married since 2015, the couple says they’ve tried to take their growth one step at a time. “It’s been such a whirlwind,” says Pollack, 31, who first started making ice cream sandwiches when she was executive chef at Greenleaf’s Pool Room. And they keep coming, changing with the season and Pollack’s frequent flashes of confectionery genius. There are more flavors, a lot more, all made with fresh natural ingredients. Then there is Caramel Chai-thick brown sugar cookies and chai ice cream swirled with dulce de leche-and Chocolate Espresso-chewy chocolate brownie cookies and chocolate ice cream finished with espresso beans. No, it’s because of Fat Elvis-banana ice cream made with fresh bananas piled between thick peanut butter cookies and dipped in chocolate-and Cookie Monster-vanilla ice cream loaded with crushed Oreos surrounded by chocolate chip cookies. That kind of growth isn’t the result of having restaurant industry chops (they’ve got them), not even blind luck. By March, that number had reached 1,200, and by September, they were making up to 7,000 sandwiches. The sandwiches were also a bit sweeter.Last November, when chefs Hannah Pollack and Xavier Meers left the helms of their respective restaurant kitchens to run their side business Nightingale Ice Cream full time, they were making about 100 from-scratch ice cream sandwiches per week. The ones who did try them noticed the ice cream was different than that of the round sammies: It didn’t have vanilla bean flecks, and the addition of egg yolks gave it more of a classic custard flavor. Alden’s also makes Old School Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches, but some of our testers couldn’t find them locally. Multiple testers commented that this one tasted like real, good-quality ice cream-almost as if someone took a big scoop and put it between two cookies (not all of the sandwiches we tasted were filled with ice cream you’d want to eat on its own). Those flecks gave this sandwich the strongest vanilla taste of any of the sandwiches we tested (though it definitely had cookies-and-cream notes). Also, unless your kid has a sophisticated palate, they probably won’t appreciate the tiny flecks of vanilla bean swirled throughout the ice cream. And by that, we mean adults will know to hoard these in a special place in the freezer, since there are only four of them. This is the pinnacle of an adult ice cream sandwich. But here’s the ice cream we’d scream for the loudest (grouped by dairy and non-dairy options). Ultimately, we discovered that even if someone handed us the worst ice cream sandwich, we’d still eat it. We specifically looked at ones that could be found easily in stores, because when you want an ice cream sandwich, you probably want it right away. To find our favorites, we tasted 12 nationally available old-school-style ice cream sandwiches (including a few dairy-free options). So which one do we love the best? We decided to find out. Despite those delicious variations, we still love the traditional ice cream sandwich-and not all are created (or taste) equal. These days, your local supermarket, bodega, and gas station all have freezers filled with ice cream sandwiches in a variety of shapes, sizes, and flavors. For us, ice cream sandwiches conjure memories of having summers off, gathering with family, and chasing down the ice cream truck as a kid-or an adult. Whether it’s chocolatey and creamy or kind of cardboard-y, there’s something fantastic about an old-school-style ice cream sandwich-the kind made from vanilla ice cream and two chocolate wafers that stick to your fingers.
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