It’s warming up. Thoughts turn to ice cream.
Last year Willard Scoops was a welcome addition to the ice cream choices in So. Portland and Cape Elizabeth. Located across from Scratch and serving Mt. Desert Island ice cream, it provided a great option when one grew tired of Beale’s (which has never been a favorite of mine) or didn’t want to drive all the way into Cape for the Kettle Cove dairy bar.
New for 2010, Willard Scoops now makes its own homemade ice cream, which no doubt raises the bar for gourmet ice cream in the Portland area. Particularly given its proximity to Scratch, this is ice cream worth driving over the bridge for. Grab a mid-afternoon ice cream to tide you over until dinner, then head across the street to pick up some baked goods to go with dinner. Or take your cone down to Willard Beach a few blocks away and enjoy it with your feet in the sand. (So long as you don’t finish it first).
I particularly like how some of the ice creams at Willard Scoops use salt to good effect, such as in the chocolate sea salt ice cream and the salt caramel and salt caramel nut ice creams. The salt provides a nice foil to the chocolate and caramel ice creams and is a must for anyone who enjoys salty sweet contrasts.
The mint chip, which uses fresh mint and avoids the overly-sweet and artificial mint flavor (and color) of many versions, is also fantastic. This is serious ice cream, creamy and rich, with the perfect texture. It avoids the trap of being too thick, dense or “chewy” (which is a problem that sometimes plagues “gourmet” ice cream). In addition to the usual stand-by flavors, Willard Scoops plans to offer a rotating menu of over 20 ice creams from among 60 flavors. It looks like Portland may be on its way to having its own Christina’s-style ice cream shop featuring gourmet ice cream with interesting and unique flavors.
Thanks for the good information! We’ve been waiting for them to open. Cannot WAIT to try that chocolate sea salt ice cream.
It sounds like something we’ll have to try, to see how it compares to Toot’s in Yarmouth. Toot’s sets the standard for ice cream in Maine, and indeed almost anywhere. I’m not sure I’ve had better ice cream anywhere else in the US.