Summer Ice Cream Quest 2024 – A Busy Woman, With Concerns

We have begun a late summer adventure quest: finding our favorite local ice cream shop! Our main qualification is that it has to have 3 or more vegan flavors, and those flavors can’t all be sorbets.

Week 1: Tongue In Cheek Ice Cream, July 18

The first week’s contestant was Tongue In Cheek Ice Cream in Richardson. I had salted caramel and caramel crack, Doc had mint Oreo and cappuccino crunch, and Jamie had vegan chocolate fudge and vegan coconut chocolate crunch.

My verdict: totally delicious! Would definitely eat here again.

Week 2: Sweet Firefly, July 25

I forgot to take photos at ice cream shop contestant #2: Sweet Firefly in Richardson. (We are doing IMPORTANT RESEARCH, PEOPLE.)

My verdict: it was fine. Nothing particularly special. Portions were less generous than Tongue in Cheek and somewhat less flavorful/interesting. I had salted caramel and Doc had coffee toffee crunch. Jamie had vegan pb-chocolate and his verdict was, “All ice cream is good. I will eat it anywhere, anytime.”

I definitely take issue with their proofreading, though! Who let this image out into the world?!

Week 3: Sweet Pearl’s, July 30

Ice Cream Quest #3 complete! Sweet Pearl’s. It was pretty decent. Cute doggie logo, too.

I had salted caramel, Doc had mint Oreo and coffee toffee crunch, and Jamie had coconut sorbet, which he claimed was “gritty” and felt like it was cutting up his mouth.

For me it ranks #2 so far, judging solely on their salted caramel flavor (which apparently I have standardized on). However, their website touted their “inclusive” menu chock full of gluten free and vegan options. Based on that, I didn’t bother checking on what flavors they specifically had today, and I specifically should have, because all they had was the aforementioned coconut sorbet. “Chock full” my ass!

Doc found it sub-par and ranks it #3 out of 3 so far.

Week 4: Bruster’s, August 8

Our fourth and final contestant in our summer Ice Cream Quest was Bruster’s in Plano.

Jamie had three vegan flavors — chocolate, cookies and cream, and cappuccino chocolate chip; Doc had orange creamsicle, mint chocolate chip and cold brew brownie; and I had salted caramel toffee.

Mine was quite good. I do love a good salty caramel and I think if they had dialed back the salt by about 20%, it would have been perfect. It was just a leeeeetle too salty.

There was no indoor seating, and it was in the upper 90s but at least the sun had gone down, so it was hot but not unbearably so. The ice cream melted fast, as you would expect.