Cold Stone

I love ice cream.  And I love birthday freebies.

So, when I got a BOGO for Cold Stone for my birthday, I just had to hit it up, as it had been years since I'd been.  We used to go all the time with my teammates at work to celebrate birthdays, but somehow stopped that tradition.

I think that magic has been lost.  The ice cream just seemed fairly low end, not creamy, just not very good.  The mix-ins, likewise, just aren't very special.  And it is really quite expensive.

Service on all my visits has been surly.

I doubt I'll be going back, unless someone has a BOGO and wants to treat me :)

Peanut Butter Cup Perfection (with sweet cream ice cream rather than chocolate).  Sweet cream ice cream, Reese’s peanut butter cups, peanut butter, fudge.

I love chocolate and peanut butter.  This is what I always used to get at Cold Stone.

I've never been a big fan of chocolate ice cream, so have always subbed out the chocolate ice cream that normally comes with this for the sweet cream one.

This really didn't live up to my memory, although there were a number of execution errors that I partially blame.

I think she forgot the fudge, which I didn’t realize until I’d already left.  It really took away from the experience, as it is all about the chocolate and peanut butter!  Perhaps she thought since I wasn't getting the chocolate ice cream that I didn't want any chocolate?

She also put in way too much peanut butter, with many spoonfuls containing only peanut butter, no ice cream!  The peanut butter was pretty generic.

The base ice cream was fine, but not very creamy.

The peanut butter cups were … exactly Reese’s peanut butter cups, chopped into a couple pieces.

I loved this so much in the past, but this time it all just seemed like something I could easy make at home with any old plain ice cream, a jar of generic pb, and some pb cups.  Meh!  And normally ~$5?  Very not worth it.

All Lovin’ No Oven (with mint ice cream rather than cake batter).  Mint ice cream, cookie dough, fudge, whipped cream.

I'd never had this one before, but cookie dough, fudge, and whipped cream all sounded great.  My friend who was with me commented on how he thought the cake batter ice cream was way too sweet, so I sampled it first.  I'm glad I did, as I agreed that it was way too sweet.  So I subbed out the ice cream for mint instead.

The mint ice cream I sampled had a decent mint flavor, but it was lost once all this was mixed together. I couldn't really taste the mint at all.

The fudge provided a decent chocolate backdrop, but was also fairly lost.

Dominating the creation was the cookie dough.  There was a ton of it, and each of the chunks were huge.  I really liked the flavor of the cookie dough, but it was too much.  I wanted ice cream, not just cookie dough!

Also dominating was the whipped cream, which was mixed it.  It caused the whole thing to become too sweet, which is what I’d been trying to avoid by swapping out the ice cream flavor.  It did create a rather fluffy consistency that was kinda fun though.  I wouldn’t get this again.

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Just my notes on tasting the base ice creams, over assorted visits.

• Banana: Not much banana flavor, not creamy.
• Cake Batter: super sweet meh [ way too sweet, not very good ]
• Cheesecake: not much flavor [ sweet, very cream cheesy ]
• Oreo Cream Filling: kinda just sweet [ way too sweet ]
• Sweet Cream Sinless: no flavor, not creamy
• Mint: decent mint flavor, not very creamy