“This is the BEST ice cream EVER.”  My friend Nikki was leaving no room for lowering my expectations of Sweet Rose Creamery.  “The salted-caramel ice cream is TO DIE FOR!”  OK.  Fine.  I’ve had salted caramel ice cream.  When is it bad?

So I tasted the salted caramel ice cream and it was terrific.  But not terrific like, you would keel over and never stop extolling the greatness.  It was great.  Fine.

The greatness of Sweet Rose Creamery is all about the flavors that other ice cream makers don’t touch, can’t come close to.  Once I started experimenting with tastes (metal spoon, not disposable – nice touch), that’s when my taste buds wanted to jump and shout superlatives.  Mint ice cream was like eating a bunch of mint leaves, ripped off the plant.  Black sesame ice cream was a total revelation – how do they get that toasted flavor in there?  It’s not that that is my favorite flavor, but to taste something like black sesame in ice cream – it’s so unexpected that it’s thrilling.
What Nikki was trying to tell me is that this was a thrilling ice cream parlor – that’s true.   Where else can you taste Early Grey or Summer Corn ice cream?  What they really need to do is have a sample platter: all you get is a quarter size bite of every flavor they have that day.  Because as much as I was enjoying the freshness of the mint ice cream, I got tired of it halfway through.  I was greedy for more explosive and unexpected tastes.  I had mastered the mint.  Bring on the Yellow Nectarine Sorbet! 

PS:  They also have non-dairy desserts, frozen bananas, and popsicles.  Expensive and worth it.  (Especially if you don’t live in Santa Monica)