Sweet Deal on Great Cool Treats : Some Spots That Specialize in Ice Cream, Frozen Goodies

There once was a bumpersticker that read, “Life is too short to drink bad wine.” Perhaps there also should be one that reads, “Life is too short to eat bad ice cream.”

Is there such a thing as bad ice cream? Doubtful. Is there great ice cream? Absolutely.

There are ice cream shops and parlors in every corner of North County, most within walking distance or a short-drive from home. There are shops that make their own ice cream from family recipes, and venerable chains, such as Dairy Queen, Baskin-Robbins, Haagen-Daz and Ben & Jerry’s.

Frozen yogurt retailers in recent years have also carved out a significant niche for themselves in North County. Shops like California Yogurt Co. in several coastal towns, Dab’s in Carlsbad and Froglanders in Solana Beach are among places that offer a lower-fat, less caloric alternative to ice cream.

And, for some, no ice cream or frozen yogurt can compare to a fresh-fruit popsicle.

North County’s frozen tundra represents not only local talent, but also some shops with flavors from around the world. Lappert’s Hawaiian Ice Cream in Escondido features exotic flavors such as passion fruit and mango. A relative newcomer to North County is gelato, an Italian ice cream that can be found at Gelato Classico in Del Mar or Bubby’s in Encinitas.

Here’s the scoop on some of the frozen treats in North County:

TROPICANA DELITE

162 W. Mission Ave. Escondido Calls: 489-8546 Hibiscus. Rice. Tamarindo.

They may not sound like regular popsicle flavors, but at Tropicana Delite they are daily staples.

For the past nine years, Henry and Margarita Ibarra have run this mom-and-popsicle business from a small shop in Escondido. They use whatever fresh fruit they can get their hands on to make an array of unusual icy and creamy pops.

Lemon, coco de agua (coconut), pineapple and boysenberry are among the popular icy sicles. Coconut and rice are the favorite creamy pops, Margarita said.

Summer flavors include watermelon, cantaloupe and plum. Tamarindo (looks like root beer, but it’s very sour) and hibiscus (made from the juice of boiled flowers) are year-round standards.

“Our product is made with all fresh fruits harvested from here in San Diego County,” Margarita said. “Nobody comes to us, we go find our own fruit.”

The strawberries come from a fruit stand in the San Pasqual Valley. The boysenberries come from a grower in San Marcos.

The lemons come from Palomar Mountain. Situated in the heart of avocado country, Margarita has considered including the smooth green fruit to her popsicle menu, but so far hasn’t.

Pistacio, coffee, chocolate, coconut, banana, walnut, mango and pina colada make up a respectable ice cream list. For the popsicles, the Ibarras chop fruit into chunks small enough to fit into a standard-sized blender. Oranges are squeezed by hand.

The pureed fruit is then poured into eight, 40-piece molds that float in a machine that resembles a long trough of water. It takes about 30 minutes for the molds to freeze in salted water and during the freezing process, Margarita and her husband insert the wood popsicle sticks.

The Ibarras have to mentally gauge when their pops are done and then they have to move quickly. They rinse the frozen molds under cold running water in the sink and pull the finished product from the mold quickly before it melts. Then they place their popsicles in individual plastic bags.

The Ibarras make about 400 popsicles a night, not including special orders.

Fruit, a little sugar, and an occasional seed are the only ingredients that go into the popsicles, Margarita said. Two flavors, orange and grape, are made without sugar.

Henry learned the popsicle trade from a man in Mexico and he follows those recipes still. All of his formulas are in his head. He despairs when his son, Henry Jr., who is learning the business, writes down his recipes, Margarita said.

“My husband told him one time, ‘You’re not supposed to write them down. What if you write them down and you lose them or somebody picks them up and steals your recipes? Then you’ve lost everything.’ ”

In the morning, Henry Jr., 19, makes ice cream before heading to his job at the Escondido Parks and Recreation Department. In the evening, after finishing work at Napp Systems USA Inc, Henry Sr. makes popsicles.

Margarita manages the shop with counter assistance from her 16-year-old daughter, Aurora. Seven-year-old Erika also lends a hand. About 70% of Tropicana’s clientele is Latino, Margarita said. They come for tamarindo, guava, and coco de agua , flavors that are popular in Mexico but not easily found here.

“Mexico is very famous for its popsicles, they are everywhere,” Margarita said. “Our popsicles are really popular with the Mexicans because it’s something they’re used to from home, something they remember they like.”

The Ibarras are opening a new shop in Vista this summer and plan on including sundaes and splits in their expanded menu. They will continue to make their ice cream and popsicles from their Escondido store.

An icy popsicle costs 65 cents, and a creamy popsicle is 85 cents. Ice cream is 85 cents a scoop and a 20-ounce milkshake sells for $2.50.

BUBBY’S

937 1st St. Encinitas Calls: 436-3563 The murderously long hours of melting thick slabs of chocolate, grinding pounds of espresso and roasting nuts take their toll, but the end result is something like victory, say Jack and Monique Renard.

Indeed, just one taste of their Coconut or Gianduia (chocolate hazelnut) or Chocolate Raspberry gelato is enough to set you free. But with 24 flavors to choose from, including homemade sorbets, working your way through Bubby’s menu could mean having to quit your day job.

Monique Renard is the gelato genius behind the husband and wife operation situated in a small shop in the Lumberyard Shopping Center in Encinitas. The majority of her recipes, particularly the chocolate flavors, originated from her parents who made gelato for two decades from their pastry shop in the south of France.

“In Europe, most of the large pastry shops make their own ice cream,” Jack said. “If you want to buy ice cream, you had to go to a pastry shop. Quite often, the ice cream was sold in blocks as for a dinner party. You could get an ice cream cone, but mostly they were sold in resort areas.”

The Renards bought Bubby’s two and half years ago and Monique spent about a year developing her own recipes and incorporating her parents’ formulas. From a back room in their 800-square-foot shop, she and Jack make gelato and sorbet every day, always more than 25 gallons at a time.

Cream, eggs and sugar make the base for gelato. Depending on the flavor and her imagination, Monique will add fresh passion fruits, roasted nuts, ginger, coconut or Guittard chocolates and cocoa. The main difference between gelato and ice cream is air.

“Gelato is gelato because we don’t incorporate air into the ice cream,” Jack said. “With ice cream what happens is that when the mix freezes, you pump air into it. The end product is much lighter, not as tasty, not as smooth as gelato.”

Monique’s gelato is so dense it clings to the little white plastic spoon and requires a certain amount of sucking power to slurp it loose. Even the thickness of premium ice creams like Haagen-Daz and Ben & Jerry’s pale in comparison.

A single scoop of this gelato would be sufficient to send anyone spinning into a third dimension, but many novice and hard-core customers alike come back for seconds.

“They come in and start with one scoop and they say, ‘My God, that was wonderful, I want another one,’ and they have another,” Monique said.

Jack waves off a mention of calories as if he is fanning gnats. Monique shakes her head a little sadly.

“It’s a difficult question because it varies from flavor to flavor,” Jack said. “Our white chocolate is probably the highest in calories, while the others, like the fruity ones, are less rich in calories. Our product is probably the equivalent of a high premium ice cream, possibly a little bit more.”

Consider that a 4-ounce serving of Haagen-Daz Chocolate is 270 calories and decide for yourself. Hey, we’re not talking sprouts.

Monique’s sorbets--Mango, Raspberry, Lemon--offer a creamy, icy alternative to the calorie explosion gelato causes. Made from fresh fruit, sorbet contains no dairy, no fat and a minimal amount of sugar syrup.

Most of Bubby’s regular customers show some restraint, however, by coming in only once a week.

“I know on Friday who’s going to be coming in, and on Saturday and Tuesday and Monday,” Monique said. “I’m here seven nights a week so I know all my customers. When I see a customer come in, I know exactly what he wants. He comes in for a special flavor.

“People aren’t very adventurous,” Monique added. “I give a lot of samples and they taste, but they will always come back to their favorite flavor.”

Espresso Chip is the most popular flavor among the 24 gelatos offered at Bubby’s, and Mango leads in the sorbets, but there is no such thing as a slow seller, Monique said. She toyed briefly with the idea of eliminating a couple flavors from her repertoire, but dismissed it, saying she did not want to make anybody unhappy by not having their favorite on hand.

The Renards also supply a number of North County and La Jolla restaurants and hotels with more sophisticated gelatos like Orange Ginger, Cinnamon Rum and Cardamom. Monique can create any flavor a chef can think up.

Monique also makes gelato pies beautiful enough to be in the Louvre, but they are more lethal than an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Made of a tightly packed chocolate cookie crust, cappuccino gelato filling, fudge topping and a dusting of roasted almonds, Monique’s Mud Pie would make any weight-watcher weep.

A generous scoop of gelato or sorbet in a cone or cup costs $1.40; a double scoop is $2.45. Bubby’s also sells gelato shakes and sundaes from $2.95 up. The deadly mud pie sells for $2.10 a slice or $11.75 whole.

ROXY ICE CREAM

519 First Street Encinitas Calls: 753-9824

Roxy, located near the La Paloma Theatre, is the largest North County retail distributor of Niederfrank’s, a premium ice cream that is made in National City by the husband and wife team of David and Betty Allen.

Kahlua Krunch and Triple Chocolate are the biggest sellers of the 21 flavors at Roxy. Good ole’ vanilla lags behind slightly.

Marble Fudge, Mexican Chocolate, Coconut Almond Joy, Macadamia Crunch, Almond Fudge, Banana and Butterscotch Marble also make up the dipping case at Roxy. An international vegetarian restaurant takes up most of Roxy’s space, but tables outside and inside are there for people to sit and enjoy their frozen treats.

For those who want to indulge in more ways than one, the Roxy has a little ice cream bar, set up to make ice cream drinks with alcohol. Kahlua, amaretto and vodka are used to make various shakes like the Coconut Mother Shake or the Dreamy Screw Driver.

Fresh cream, whole eggs, sugar and the tiniest amount of vegetable stabilizer (to ensure hardness) are the only ingredients that go into Allens’ mixes. No preservatives or artificial colorings are added and the Allens make all their ice cream flavor bases from scratch, using vintage recipes from the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Allens’ factory is a small operation, made up of just Betty and David and an old ice cream making machine, circa 1904, cranking out about 500 gallons per week in the summer. David, who has been in the business more than 20 years, said the key to making good ice cream is keeping your hand in the mix, so to speak.

“The gentleman who started this company had 30 years experience behind and he was educated to do everything for himself. We’re still equipped to do that,” Allen said.

Variations on Betty’s mother’s peach preserve recipe are the basis for the Peaches and Cream ice cream Allen makes today. Same goes for David’s grandmother’s recipe for brandied blackberry preserves, which, marbled into vanilla ice cream, makes for one knock-out of a frozen treat.

Allen likes a challenge. Roxy orders a lot of coconut ice cream, but 15 years ago, Allen was told by a man that it would be impossible to make a full-flavored coconut ice cream without artificial flavor.

“It took me seven years to prove him wrong, but I did. I threw away a lot of ice cream. All my mistakes went to the pigs on my brother in-law’s farm in Boulevard.”

Niederfrank’s ice cream at Roxy cost $1.50 for a single scoop, $2.75 for a double cone or cup. A small fudge sundae is $2 and a large is $3. A 16-ounce shake, made up of two and half scoops of ice cream, goes for $2.95.

CONE APPETIT

3910 Vista Way Oceanside Calls: 724-2670 Sometimes, surprising as it may seem, man and woman cannot live on ice cream alone. Into every life a little candy and cookie and waffle must fall.

Enter Cone Appetit. Their big strength comes from their crispy-edged, slightly thick waffle cones that are baked on the premises and served fresh daily.

The shop gets its vast ice cream inventory by mixing crushed candy bars, fruits and Oreo cookies into their 30 different flavors of ice cream. The combinations are endless.

Before your eyes, plain vanilla ice cream can become studded with crushed Butterfingers or Kit Kats or Snickers or Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. For the truly artistic and adventurous, you can add in these candy textures with other ice creams such as Pistachio, Pineapple, Butter Pecan and Peach.

Cost is $1.75 for a generous scoop. For a true gorge-fest, try a shake priced at $2.15.

FROZEN YOGURTS

What you’re looking for is a little bit of culture. What you find is a list of frozen yogurt shops long enough to wrap around several city blocks.

What you may not know is that few of these frozen yogurt establishments make their own product. Most retailers in the industry turn to big house manufacturers like Columbo, Honey Hill, Alta Dena and Continental.

The yogurt is shipped in a thick liquid form in cartons like milk. Retailers freeze it in the big steel machines you see in the shops.

Frozen yogurt these days comes in as many chic flavors as the super premium ice creams. Take, for example, Jam’s in Del Mar. The shop offers eight flavors on any given day and can twist two flavors together for further combinations. Chocolate and variations on that theme (Chocolate St. Moritz and Double Dutch Chocolate) lead the pack in sales.

Daily staples include Peanut Butter, French Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry. Other yogurts--50 in all--are rotated in and include Coconut and Pecan Praline.

Nonfat frozen yogurts, sweetened with fructose and some sucrose, make up most of Jam’s menu. The calorie content averages about 21 calories an ounce for the nonfat flavors.

If the no-fat, low-fat routine leaves you feeling virtuous and like you’ve got a few calories to spare, you can always glob on some of the standard toppings. No self-respecting frozen yogurt shop is without at least several kinds of hot sundae toppings, beds of fresh fruit kept on ice, and every dry garnish imagineable from gummy bears to brownies to granola.

For the bare-bones frozen dessert eater, there is Gise. For something that is non-everything (dairy, fat, sugar), Gise is quite tasty for the skimpy 8 1/2 calories it has per ounce.

It’s made of whey and a high form of real fruit fructose. When you want something sweet, but even a nonfat yogurt is looking a little chancy for your daily calorie intake, Gise is a possible alternative. It is also a new choice for diabetics and for people who are lactose-intolerant.