You could get them with vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream or a vanilla/chocolate twist.
They would make one for you fresh - perfect textures but a bit risky depending on how warm it was how much soft serve would leak out before you could eat it all OR they had them in their freezer compartment where they would have hardened to basically concrete so you needed to scrape the ice cream out with your teeth or wait countless minutes until it was softened enough to bite through.
Child: Hot fudge sundae at the local ice cream shop -or- a push up from the ice cream man.
Adult: 100% mocha chip ice cream from Graeter’s (Cincinnati based ice cream)
Kid: creamsicles and fudgesicles. We would collect soda bottle deposits to get the money to buy them. As a kid, the creamsicles had great vanilla ice cream in them. And the fudgesicles were really fudgy.
Adult: vanilla soft serve but it has to be good quality (Cleveland folks…East Coast Custard quality). I also love black and white malts (a vanilla malt with a splash of chocolate sauce). Extra malt is a treat!
I like my ice cream melted and malted. Always a shake. As a kid, chocolate malted. As an adult, either chocolate or vanilla malted, but I find a scoop of mint chocolate chip in a dish quite acceptable. Must be ice cream, no atrocities like soft serve, sorbet, sherbet, frozen yogurt or custard. Definitely no fruit flavors/pieces (exception below). Jury’s still out on gelato which I tolerate surprisingly well.
And this is a gift:
The Chambord Hummer
1 oz Chambord® raspberry liqueur
1 oz rum
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
Blend Chambord, rum, and ice cream in blender on low-med for one minute. Garnish w/ fresh raspberries.
As a kid, we rarely had any frozen treat, so anything was awesome. I remember having hot fudge sundae at Farrell’s (free on your birthday) and also Yum Yum Tree (a restaurant in the mall). Also loved orange & vanilla creamsicles.
Now, I like the Cherry Garcia dairy free Ben & Jerry’s as well as the Häagen-Dazs bars with the crunchy stuff on the outside (like @abasket). There’s also a local place that makes gelatos and sorbetto that we like (but it’s expensive and often quite crowded). They also make their own waffle cones.
Ice cream is one of my favorite things, and has been as long as I can remember.
Kid - Blueberry ice cream from Bud’s Ice Cream Parlor in San Francisco. They would have lines down the entire block and around the corner.
Now - Jeni’s is my favorite brand, and I really like the Brambleberry Crisp, Blueberry/Lemon, and the Dark Chocolate Blackout Cake.
For anyone who belongs to Amazon Prime and has a Whole Foods nearby, they have Jeni’s and other brands on sale for 50% off right now.
My son spent $100 on ice cream today. I’ve shared a pic of his freezer before, but here it is today
As a kid: Good Humor Chocolate Eclair popsicle (the chocolate version of the strawberry one pictured above; on a really hot day - a chocolate fudgsicle. Both bought from the bicycle-pedaled ice cream cart whose arrival at YOUR beach was announced by a very tanned teen-age boy ringing a hand-held bell at the beach entrance. (OCNJ - IFYKYK) In the school cafeteria - ice cream sandwiches!
As an adult: I still have a soft spot for ice cream sandwiches! But for a more adult treat - a scoop of mocha java ice cream in a cup from any ice cream store that sells hand-dipped; in the vacation house freezer for our 2-week Jersey shore vacation - a half gallon of coffee, a half gallon of mint chocolate chip, and a half gallon of black cherry. 3 little scoops of each in a coffee mug after dinner sitting on the porch. My H would say a scoop of coffee or vanilla ice cream with a pour of dark rum over top.
As I kid I ate a lot of Carvel - my favorite was their thick shakes - but I also liked the cone with the chocolate shell on top.
I loved the soft serve from the freezer fresh truck that came around on summer nights.
I remember Jahns well, a Brooklyn staple. Honestly, the ice cream wasn’t that great, it was all about the show - the waiters memorizing all the orders, the ridiculous kitchen sink, and the free birthday sundae. They did have a lot of variety of toppings for their sundaes.
As an adult, I lean towards really good gelato. The one I had recently that was outstanding was from Frost Gelato in Tucson. But I will settle for Venchi or Eataly. My favorite flavor is chocolate hazelnut (taste like Baci candy).
My very first favorite was raspberry sorbet, then later chocolate brownie ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Have always liked ice cream sandwiches- melty like abasket likes it!
As an adult my favorite ice cream is homemade brand chocolate chip or my H’s homemade cherry garcia.
All time favorite ice cream treat lifelong is an old fashioned fountain chocolate ice cream soda with vanilla ice cream. There used to be an amazing shop in Glen Arbor Michigan that made them and also made the best milkshakes. They made a cherry one with real fresh cherries that was amazing!
As a kiddo I liked chocolate eclairs, fudgesicles and Screwballs - all from the local ice cream truck (my sister and I would raid my dad’s coin jar to pay). We’d also frequent local ice cream places (there were/are a LOT of them in MA). I still remember Steve’s in Cambridge where they hand cranked (with a machine) an old fashioned ice cream maker - they were the original “mix ins” ice cream place.
As an adult I like Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge brownie and various Tillamook flavors for commercially available ice cream. I still hit one of the many local homemade ice cream places during the summer - I tend to like chocolate based flavors.
Talenti Gelato (Pistachio) is my favorite ice cream. A close contender is the ice cream from a local shop-- Toscanini’s (Cambridge, MA). Unfortunately, I don’t live nearby anymore.
Very regional when we lived near Binghamton NY - Pat Mitchell’s ice cream was great! My first apartment was across the street from the original shop in Endicott. It was a local summer tradition to get a cone, then sit nearby on the wall at the edge of the cemetery. They had sooo many flavors. One Thanksgiving we wanted to pick up vanilla to go with pie, and there were 3 choices.
