Mister Dips, NYC

Ice cream.  One of my essential food groups.  I have it most days.  When I have ice cream at home, it is usually hard serve, used as a paring with a warm dessert (pie, crisp, crumble, pastry, etc).  But when I go out to ice cream, it is often soft serve ice cream.  I adore soft serve ice cream, and I live somewhere that doesn't have that much of it.

So this year, when I was in New York for a month of the summer, let's just say, I sought out my precious soft serve ice cream, as NY has plenty of quality options (as they do for pretty much anything).  One of my destinations was Mister Dips, a place I've been following on social media for years.  I dragged a very willing friend with me.

Mister Dips features, well, dipped ice cream cones, but also griddle burgers, "chixy dips" (fried chicken sandwiches or fingers), and waffle fries.  We stuck just to the ice cream, but the burgers really did look great too.  While our cones looked amazing, sadly, they didn't quite deliver in the taste.

Setting

Mister Dips has two locations, one in NY (seaport area) and one, randomly, in Michigan.  They used to have a location in Brooklyn, but alas, it never reopened after the pandemic.  It was the Manhattan location I visited, which took effort, as it wasn't in an area I'd naturally wind up in.

Outside Seating.

There is abundant seating outside, and plenty of area to stroll around with your ice cream should you choose.

Interior.

Inside has slight diner vibes, with booths for eating.

You order at the register in front, and orders are called out (by your name) when ready, for both savory food and soft serve.

Ice Cream

While you *could* get a plain cone, a "skinny dip", that isn't really what they are known for.  Mister Dips is all about their handful of curated cones, plus a monthly special.  The cones are, well, dipped, but also generally include other elements.  

Buttermint Crunch. $7.29.

"Thin-mint custard, fudge drizzle, grasshopper cookie."

Like all cones at Mister Dips, this curated cone not only has a special flavor of soft serve (mint), it also has a special dip (white chocolate, I think possibly mint flavored too), and THEN a drizzle (fudge), and crumble coating (bits of chocolate mint cookie) ... oh, and whipped cream all around the base (not all the cones have that).  It looked pretty amazing, and I was eager to dive in (and knew I had to, fast, due to melting nature), taking just a moment to snap the photo.  

It proved as difficult to eat on the hot day as I had sorta feared, and I quickly turned into an amusing sticky mess.  I ate frantically, and tried to control it, but I was no match for 90* weather.  Melting soft serve, inside dip, in hot weather, is just never going to go well ... you simply cannot lick it fast enough to control it.  My companion fared better, as her cone didn't have the whipped cream ring around the base, so the base was able to serve as a catcher for some of her drips.

Anyway, stressful eating logistics aside, how was it?

Sadly, it looked better than it was.  The mint soft serve was very mildly flavored, not nearly as minty as I wanted (not even in the same league as my favorite mint soft serve, from King Kone).  But, moreover, it wasn't really very creamy.  It wasn't icy exactly, but, really not a rich, creamy style.  It seemed more like froyo than ice cream, just lacking that creamy mouthfeel.  So the base ice cream itself, definitely left something to be desired.

The white chocolate dip/shell was sweet and fine, but I still don't know if it was actually mint flavored (or just light green), as it just tasted like white chocolate, e.g. sweet, to me.  The dip solidified well, and didn't all break off as sometimes happens, and wasn't too waxy, but, again, the flavor was very muted.  It also seemed like a missed opportunity not to go more in the Thin Mint / Andes Mint / Peppermint Patty direction with a dark chocolate dip.  If I were to get this again, I'd ask for the chocolate dip instead.

The chocolate elements that were there were the chocolate fudge drizzle and grasshopper cookie bits.  These were both gone in the first moments of consumption.  The chocolate drizzle really seemed more like sauce than fudge, and, yeah, was gone after two bites.  I didn't even notice nor taste the few crumbs of cookie.  The whipped cream around the base was a nice touch, I can't say I've ever had whipped cream on a cone before, but I always have it with my ice cream when it is in a dish, so, this was novel and enjoyable.

So, overall, it looked great, but, flavors too muted, ice cream not creamy, and fairly stressful to eat.  Oh, and the cone itself, by the time I got there, was a soggy disaster, as the melted ice cream had entirely soaked it.  At least it was inside the cone catcher, otherwise it would have broken apart way too early in the eating experience.

My companion had the Berry Gibbs, with all entirely different components, and she said hers too wasn't particularly flavorful, and that the ice cream wasn't creamy, so, it wasn't just my poor choice of cone.

I likely would not return here, as NY has too much incredible other soft serve.  **+.