#31 – HONEY ROSEMARY ICE CREAM at DESSERTTRUCK WORKS

Once again Time Out New York released their Top 100 Dishes of the year and once again, I’m going to eat my way through every one. And no price point or subway delay will stop me. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100.

SADLY, DESSERTTRUCK WORKS IS NOW CLOSED.
By now we’ve all heard about the gourmet food truck scene in New York and across the country. I even give a Food Cart Tour every week in Midtown and the Financial District that shows off the wide variety of food options from mobile vendors: everything from schnitzel to falafel to Korean Mexican tacos.

In this city, the craze started with desserts in 2007 when The Treats Truck, Wafels & Dinges, and Dessert Truck all started selling their gourmet sweets on the streets of New York. If you google any of those names, you will see they sell very different products and they’re all hugely successful.

So successful in fact that Jerome Chang (a former pastry chef at Le Cirque) even opened a “brick and mortar” location of Dessert Truck that stays put in the Lower East Side. Treats Truck will also be opening a bakery later this year. And Wafels & Dinges now have three carts in addition to the big truck.

The menu at this very comfortable wide open sweet shop is rather small (with just four dessert options, a handful of cookies and snacks, and two ice cream flavors), but somehow we managed to order almost one of everything. Granted, I did have a Groupon which entitled me to more dessert for my money. But however you look at it, I’m still a glutton.

We ordered an incredibly creamy and tart goat cheese cheese cake that was balanced with a sweetly floral rosemary caramel sauce. We also put away the Warm Molten Chocolate Cake with an intense dark chocolate gooey center that had a rich smooth olive oil center and some roasted pistachios for texture. A special deal was offered on the board that included a dessert, coffee, and macaron. And since I’m a sucker for deals, we also got to sample the Butternut Squash Macaron, which was one of the most uniquely delicious desserts I’ve ever tasted.

The Honey Rosemary Ice Cream was the TONY list item and if it wasn’t essential for my journey, I probably would not have ordered it. I didn’t come by here on my ice cream journey either since DessertTruck Works has a very limited selection of ice cream flavors (just two) and it’s definitely not their speciality.

But just like everything else they produce, the ice cream is intensely flavored and a real unusual treat. I absolutely love rosemary and when it’s incorporated well into strange places (like potato chips or ice cream), I’m won over. The salty earthy rosemary was complemented with a sweet honey finish. The only problem was that the ice cream was rather icy and a bit grainy. So it’s probably not the best ice cream in the city as far as texture, but in terms of flavor balance and uniqueness, it’s some of the best.

Would DessertTruck Works Honey Rosemary Ice Cream make my Top 100 of the year? Is DessertTruck Works the best ice cream in NY? The ice cream, like all their desserts, had a distinct and awe-inspiring flavor, but they only get an 8 out of 10 because the texture wasn’t as creamy as it should be. But it’s still well worth a scoop or three.