After my deeply disappointing experience at Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream, I was ready to go to an ice cream parlor that never disappoints: Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain.



Farmacy is basically everything I look for in a restaurant experience. It's a charming atmosphere, they play 50s music on the stereo, and they offer delicious sundaes.



Unlike a place like Ample Hills or Odd Fellows, Farmacy does not have lots of ice cream flavors, or very experimental flavors. They offer about a half dozen flavors made by Adirondack Creamery, which are made with fresh, hormone-free ingredients.

The ice cream is very good on its own, but since this is an old-fashioned soda shoppe, you'd be a fool not to dress it up in a milkshake or a float or (duh) a sundae.



The one on the left is vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and Farmacy's homemade peanut butter. The one on the right, obviously, is mine. It's a scoop of chocolate ice cream and a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream, and cookie crumbles from Farmacy's fresh-baked cookies.

BOTTOM LINE: Not my favorite standalone ice cream in the city, but unquestionably my favorite place in the city to eat an ice cream sundae.

Franklin Park bourbon milkshake

Franklin Park is everything a bar should be. They have pub trivia and a reading series. They have a lovely outdoor area. They have dancing and DJs on weekend nights. Most of all, they have bourbon milkshakes.



As you may recall from my foray into chocolate whiskey, I am intrigued by mixing chocolate and alcohol. Franklin Park's bourbon milkshake is the best way I've found to do this.

It definitely tastes bourbon-y, so if you don't like that, just get a non-alcoholic milkshake here (which they also make).

Pro tip: if you're putting bourbon in there, make sure to stir up your drink frequently. Otherwise all the bourbon will sink to the bottom and you will drink about nine ounces of plain chocolate shake, followed by about two ounces of brown-colored bourbon. If you mix it together, it will melt your ice cream, but will make for a pleasant chocolate-bourbon mixture throughout. I learned this the hard way.

BOTTOM LINE: A truly delightful drink for a summer day.

Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream

One month ago, I read about Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream and got really excited. Now, there are a lot of marvelous places in this city to get ice cream. Ample Hills, Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, Blue Marble--and that's without even having to think about it. So why, you wonder, would I get so excited about this new ice cream venue?

Because Morgenstern's menu listed the following:

CHOCOLATE DELUXE
Chocolate every way.
Chocolate frozen.
Chocolate whipped.
Chocolate crunch.
Chocolate baked.
It's over.

This so-called Chocolate Deluxe is priced at $15, but I will pay big bucks in order to keep you informed about important chocolate news. Plus, that's some really good menu copy.

So I gathered together a number of friends. And last night we went to Morgenstern's, to try this Chocolate Deluxe and see if it was, as promised, "over." And here's what happened:

They didn't have it.

The woman who worked there assured me that it wasn't that they had run out for the day. It's that the Chocolate Deluxe actually does not exist. The chef is still in the process of creating it. At some point presumably it will exist, since it is promised on the menu. But she could not tell me when.

Folks, go to Brooklyn Farmacy, go to Emack and Bolio, go to Sundaes and Cones. There is so much good ice cream in New York City. Don't waste your time on a place that promises chocolate they cannot deliver.

BOTTOM LINE: You're right, Morgenstern's: It's over.

Mouth chocolate-covered deliciousness gift bag

For Christmas/Hanukkah, the fabulously talented Mallory Kasdan (author of Ella) gave me a gift bag of chocolate-covered things manufactured in Brooklyn from Mouth, which sells indie, small-batch, artisanal foods.

Basically, I want to eat every single thing that Mouth sells, and ideally nothing else--if it were possible to thrive on artisanal pickles and mayonnaise and chocolate bars alone, that is what I would do.

I have now eaten every last item in my chocolate-covered gift bag. Here are my bottom-line responses to each item:



Nunu Chocolates, chocolate-covered grahams: Loved these. Crisp, chocolatey, sea salt sprinkled on top. More, please.



Nunu Chocolates, hokey pokey: This was okay, but the texture doesn't do it for me. It's chocolate-covered honeycomb, and it gets stuck in your molars. If you like honeycomb, though, this is a good choice.



Tumbador, corn nut dragee: Another good salty-sweet combo, but I liked this less than the Nunu Chocolates graham crackers, again because these got caught in my molars, and also sometimes they had a weird soapy taste.



Jacques Torres, chocolate-covered corn flake clusters: These were awesome. Crunchy, chocolatey, all the appeal of chocolate-covered pretzels only more interesting.



Roni-Sue's chocolate-dipped pretzels: These misled me. You know I love chocolate-dipped pretzels, and these looked so beautiful. The chocolate part was good. But the pretzel they chose to dip was texturally just wrong.



Tumbador, hazelnut dragee: Delightful.These were even better than the other Tumbador item, because unlike the corn nuts, these did not get stuck in your molars.

BOTTOM LINE: If I could receive this gift bag in the mail every couple months for the rest of my life, I would be happy. Also, go look at Mouth's website. They offer a lot more items than these. A lot of Brooklyn things worth eating.

Convivium Osteria

Apparently, we are on a desserts that taste like Lara Bars kick, because this chocolate, fig, and walnut cake (called a "frustingolo") from Convivium Osteria in Park Slope also tasted like a Lara Bar.

BOTTOM LINE: There was a flourless chocolate cake option. This is what I get for trying to branch out from flourless chocolate cake.

Brief ice cream round-up: Coolhaus and L'Arte del Gelato

It's after Memorial Day, which means we are in full-on ice-cream-every-day-until-October mode. A quick recap of some of the ice creams we're eating:

First, Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches.



This particular one is dirty mint chip ice cream between double chocolate cookies. Coolhaus is a food truck, and it has more adventurous flavors you can try (like Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch cookies, and Fried Chicken and Waffles ice cream). And they have more chocolatey flavor combinations, as we have eaten previously. But this one hit the spot. Fresh mint, chewy chocolatey cookie, and I am happy.

Next up, L'Arte Del Gelato. Continuing in my mint-and-chocolate flavor combination craze, this is a scoop of mint chip gelato with a scoop of Valrhona chocolate gelato. I got it from the L'Arte del Gelato stand on the Highline.



It's okay. I mean, if you're nearby, and you're in the mood for gelato, definitely eat it. But I have to agree with David: I've eaten L'Arte del Gelato a number of times and have never been blown away. There is gelato in this city that I would journey to eat--L'Albero dei Gelati, for example--but L'Arte del Gelato is not one of them.

BOTTOM LINE: Thank goodness it is ice cream season at last. I mean, I was eating a lot of ice cream even when it wasn't ice cream season. But at least now that feels more culturally desirable.