Following my scoop! post a few weeks ago, I went on abit of an ice cream rush before summer ended. Ciao is smack in the centre of Leicester square..ok that’s an exaggeration, its more like behind Leicester square and yes that headline is not a joke, they really do spaghetti ice cream here. Got your attention yet? Cool, keep reading…

As promised: spaghetti ice cream 

There are actually two menus here.  A ‘standard’ café menu that feature sarnies, pastas, you know, the basic stuff. But I mean, you’d come to cafe ciao not for the savoury food,but for the ice cream. This place is abit of an ice cream heaven. The colourful menu is a photographic odyssey of sweet creations including tiramisu with mascarpone and dairy ice cream. Archie comics style banana splits, complete with hot fudge sauce. And of course, spaghetti made completely of chocolate ice cream strands.

I ate fried eggs ice cream

I ordered the fried eggs. Its made of two half peaches (for the yolk) and vanilla ice cream (as the egg white), with a chocolate wafer stick in the middle… topped with some very juicy glazed cherries. Yeah it was good.

Yogurt Ice

Jennie wanted to be healthy so she ordered the yogurt ice cream, with lots of whipped cream on top and walnuts and fudge sauce…. its debatable whether this is actually more healthy. If you’ve never had yogurt ice cream before, it tastes abit like sour vanilla ice cream.

Melted chocolate drink

No this is not the melted hot chocolate, which they do here. Instead this is the ‘normal’ hot chocolate. To be honest, its nothing really special, but you know, a good hot chocolate is a good hot chocolate.

Thoughts and more thoughts and extra thoughts

As of writing (4th October 2008), the temperature has come right down. I think it’s about 10C outside, brrr… I’m not cold-resistent at all. In fact, I shiver when Im in the cold, even though I don’t feel it. Maybe I need to grow more bodily hair. Well, not much I can say about desserts, anything with lots of sugars generally taste good (if you like sweet things), they put an interesting twist on things here, so it’s a nice place to settle down. Prices are reasonable and portions are huge. The woman who runs the place is very warm, like a loving italian mummy making sure all her kids are well fed. So what are you waiting for? Get the melted hot chocolate and some fried eggs…made of cream. 

Hot weather can mean only one thing after spending hours pounding the streets of London, ice cream.

the five families of gelato

We’re fortunate to be blessed with family run businesses setting up shop here in the UK. Especially in London where you will find lots of italian gelato shops and most of them are located quite centrally too. Scoop is in the heart of Covent Garden. It is a little hidden away, on one of the side streets behind the Marks & Sparks outside the station. It’ll be abit of a treasure hunt, but once you find it, its like you’ve struck a gold mine!

In case you didn’t know, gelato is Italian ice cream made with all the goodness of milk & cream. The hallmark of gelato is the dense and creamy texture, I would say almost sticky nature. This is opposed to something like soft ice which is light and whippy. Gelato is generally made with less than 55% air, thus giving it the luxurious feel and making it, in my opinion the king of ice creams.

the scoopy story

A quick gander at their website and philosophy : “Scoop introduces for the first time in London the pure italian gelato experience.”

Wow, these guys sound serious, their ice-cream is not just cold milk & honey, its an experience. With such a bold selling point and the fact that the sun is melting me by the minute, I had to indulge in the pure Italian experience.

lets talk flavours

There are a lot of flavours to choose from that generally fall under either the sorbets or the milk based stuff. Among the sorbets you’ll find a pretty formidable list including pear, pineapple, watermelon, melon, blueberry.

The gelato selection feature a few famous italian puddings such as tiramisu and panna cotta. Some of my favourites are fior di latte, cookies and cream, triple chocolate and stracciatella.

Do have a quick flick through scoop’s flavour page here. They give a pretty insightful look at what goes into their product and what each flavour really means, its clear ice cream flows through their veins.

So how good is the Italian experience?

I got to to admit, it’s pretty damn good.

Generally speaking, the ‘base’ of the product is very rich and creamy, but it won’t make you queasy. The flavours are all very nice and does indeed taste ‘real’ as opposed to being artificially too sweet. Comparing against the benchmark Haagen Daz line, Scoop gelato is a little lighter, more balanced and less sweet and for some strange reason, it taste livelier, like it’s indeed more ‘fresh’.

Today I had the green mint flavour. Look at how vibrant that green is! It taste exactly what mint should do, its just so nice.

Scoop also doubles as a cafe too, I never got round to trying the cafe bit, but something interesting, is that they make ice cream cakes, and they deliver. Something to consider for any upcoming celebrations perhaps?

Bottomline: It’s so good, if you scoop that special someone you’ve been after all this time – she might just say yes.