By Dan I.Cook
Who doesn’t love ice cream on a hot summer day?
If you are like me, you love eating ice cream no matter what season it is: Coconut ice cream, sundaes, banana splits, and DQ Blizzards are my favorites.
Like most, I have great memories of ice cream trucks in the neighborhood with push-ups, screwballs, chocolate eclairs, and Ice cream sandwiches. Going to a local joint for a flying saucer, banana split, or cone dipped in chocolate was heaven.
No matter what, deciding on what to get was so hard. I hear my mother saying, “Danny hurry up and order. We don’t have all day.”
Looking back, it was a really good time.
Ice Cream Palooza Tour
I’ve been to almost every ice cream place in Coral Springs, and they are all fantastic. Honestly, it’s hard to mess up ice cream. For this review, I wanted to do something different and also get a kid’s perspective. Children are brutally honest, which I love. I wanted to see their honest opinions of who has outstanding ice cream in Coral Springs.
I asked my buddy Karla if she and her kids were willing to rate some ice cream with me. They gladly accepted.
Our judges Ary, Karla, and Mikey (photos by Dan I. Cook}
The rating system will include overall taste. We are not grading service, presentation, or ambiance. I want this to be very simple and fun. We will have one scoop of ice cream and then grade it. I will use my Beer Rating Scale, except the beers will be swapped out by Root Beer Floats. The grading chart is as follows:
Four Root Beer Floats = Outstanding
Three Root Beer Floats = Good
Two Root Beer Floats = OK
One Root Beer Float = Needs work
Zero Root Beer Floats = Sucks (No Root Beer Floats are never a good thing).
Our Judges
Mikey Vineberg, 15, is in the 10th grade at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He loves pizza, burgers, and fudge brownie ice cream and loves to play video games and hitting the gym.
Aryanna “Ary” Vineberg, 11, is in the 6th grade at Westglades Middle School. She loves baked ziti, different snacks, cookie dough, and cannoli ice cream. She loves shopping and watching Harry Potter.
Karla Samaniego, 49, was born in Ecuador. She loves paella, shrimp with pasta and cookies, and cream ice cream. She also loves to cook.
Dan I. Cook, 55, was born in Hollywood, FL. I love uni, pochi burgers (octopus) from Gabose Pocha in Lauderhill, and prime steak and lobster. My favorite ice cream is coconut. I love to cook, write, and watch YouTube and the Miami Dolphins.
Locations
We hit five locations; Cherry Smash, Cieladito’s Mexican Ice Cream, Let’s Chill, Kilwins, and Larry’s Ice Cream.
Cherry Smash at 8000 Wiles Rd in Coral Springs
Mikey: Mocha Fudge Brownie – 3 Root Beer Floats – “I never liked coffee flavors, but for what it was, it was good. You can taste the mocha, and each bit of fudge is good.”
Ary: Butter Cookie Crunch – 4 Root Beer Floats – “It was smooth, thick, and with a hint of peanut butter. I enjoyed it.”
Karla: cookies and cream – 4 Root Beer Floats – “The vanilla Ice cream was soft, smooth, and creamy with lots of pieces of crunchy cookies. Scoop was good size portion. Very delicious.”
Dan: Coconut – 3 Root Beer Floats – “Super cold and creamy. Nice coconut flavor and texture.”
Cieladito’s Mexican Ice Cream at 7782 Wiles Rd in Coral Springs
Mikey: Mexican Vanilla – 4 Root Beer Floats – ‘Vanilla is looked at as a plain flavor, but Mexican vanilla had a kick that made it different. If you are a fan of vanilla, you will definitely love it. It’s a ‘better’ vanilla.”
Ary: Maria Cookie – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Tasted like vanilla ice cream. It was smooth and had pieces of cookies that made it taste like pound cake.”
Karla: Cookies and Cream – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Unlike the usual cookies and cream made with vanilla ice cream, this one was chocolate ice cream, very smooth and creamy with big pieces of cookies. Very delectable.”
Dan: Coconut – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Nice big chunks of coconut and extremely creamy.”
Let’s Chill at 9739 W Sample Rd in Coral Springs.
Mikey: Cookies and Cream – 3 Root Beer Floats – “Instead of the usual vanilla ice cream made for cookies and cream, they used chocolate which gave it a nice twist. It was good but more of an Oreo ice cream than cookies and cream.”
Ary: Cannoli Ice Cream – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Tasted like a cannoli with sweet ricotta cheese with pieces of chocolate chips.”
Karla: Cookie Monster – 4 Root Beer Floats – “I liked the smooth vanilla ice cream mixed with big pieces of chocolate chip cookies. I also liked that they used natural coloring from plants rather than food coloring to give it that natural blue color.”
Dan: Coconut – 3 Root Beer Floats – “The shredded coconut gave it a great flavor and was very creamy.”
Kilwins at 2758 N University Dr in Coral Springs
Mikey: Superman – 2 Root Beer Floats – “It’s a mix of a bunch of flavors and is very sweet. Sort of like bubble gum and is definitely for younger kids because of how sweet and colorful it is.”
Ary: Turtle Cheesecake – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Very smooth and had a hint of strawberries, making it taste like strawberry cheesecake. I loved the flavor.”
Karla: Cookies and Cream – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Scoop of cookies and cream was a very generous portion. The vanilla ice cream was soft, smooth, and creamy. Lots of pieces of cookies mixed in. Sugar cone was crunchy and tasty.”
Dan: Toasted Coconut – 4 Root Beer Floats – “I buy this in a quart. Lots of toasted coconuts, and it comes in chocolate or vanilla. Creamy and smooth. This was the biggest scoop out of the five.”
Larry’s Ice Cream at 749 N University Dr in Coral Springs
Mikey: Midnight Nutella – 4 Root Beer Floats – “Dark Chocolate with chocolate chunks was very good even though I’m biased with chocolate. If you like chocolate and dark chocolate, this is your ice cream.”
Ary: Cookie Dough – 3 Root Beer Floats – “It was good, but it didn’t have any chunks of cookie dough, just mashed pieces.”
Karla: Cookies and Cream – 3 Root Beer Floats – “Vanilla ice cream was smooth, soft, and creamy with a good ratio of cookies.”
Dan: Coconut Colada – 3 Root Beer Floats – “This had the addition of pineapple with the coconut and tasted like a piña colada with no booze—nice balance of coconut and pineapple favors. One didn’t overpower the other. “
Verdict
The kids and I picked Cieladito’s Mexican Ice Cream as our favorite place. Karla picked Cherry Smash.
I picked Cieladito’s Mexican Ice Cream because of the nice big chunks of coconut. I’m used to it being shredded in ice cream — not chunks. It was like they opened a whole coconut and cut pieces right out of it. Plus, it was really damn creamy. I didn’t know anything about this little joint, but it truly surprised me in an awesome way. I highly recommend this place.
I want to give a special shout-out to Let’s Chill. The place is veteran-owned, which is very important to me since I’m a United States Marine.
To the owners of Let’s Chill, thank you for your service, and you have delicious ice cream.
Thank you to my judges. You all were fantastic. By the end of this tour, we all agreed, no more ice cream for a while.
Overall, there are no losers here. All of the places were awesome, and we had a great time. I highly suggest you do your own Ice Cream Tour and see what place comes out on top.
If you hit any of the joints we listed, please tell them that Dan I. Cook and CoralSpringsTalk.com sent you. Stay Hungry!
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Author Profile
- A native of Broward, Half-Samoan Half-Irish or Afa Tasi, Food Warrior, Beer Ninja, United States Marine, owner/talent of danicookeatdrink.com. Retired Oakland Park Police Department/BSO Sergeant, DLE.
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