Local ice cream boutiques will delight your tastebuds
Noble Folk's Homemade "Oreo" and passionfruit ice cream ( Claire Wu, The Puma Prensa)
By Claire Wu, staff writer
Local ice cream boutiques will delight your taste buds
Finally free to count down the days 'till summer now, with AP Exams over, the creamy, mouthwatering sweetness of ice cream is beginning to sound more and more appetizing and within reach.
Some of you may be enjoying travels around the world this summer and relishing the ice cream of faraway lands. But for those of you who will be staying in town, or are willing to explore local ice cream parlors before you leave, these three ice cream boutiques in Sonoma County may just provide the taste of summer that you're searching for:
Screamin' Mimi's:
Screamin' Mimi's was packed when I walked into this popular Sebastopol ice cream store at 7 p.m. one mild Friday night. Adorned with pink exterior walls and green awnings, about 30 customers were in the shop at one time. Patrons had to wait in line to order the ice cream that would be scooped far behind the front counter, but the cool, sweet desserts were spectacular.
"Their ice cream is really good but the lines can be long," senior Kayla Nguyen, who goes to Screamin' Mimi's once a month, confirmed.
Screamin' Mimi's has won Best Ice Cream in The Press Democrat's Best of Sonoma County Readers' Choice contest for eight consecutive years, starting in 2015. Its daily menu of local favorites, like Mimi's Mud and Deep Dark Secret, changes every day, rotating through a cast of fun flavors that you probably can't find just anywhere. But some of the many flavors that were available when I went to Screamin' Mimi's were chocolate chip cookie dough, root beer, and Deep Dark Secret. My dad ordered a one-scoop cone of Caramel Cone Explosion, a vanilla-and-caramel-flavored ice cream mixed with pieces of cone. Although the ice cream was in a cone, his order was placed in a small bowl that the patron could eat from using a spoon: a smart, proactive way of preventing melting ice cream from dripping onto the customer's hands. I ordered The Screamin' Mimi, a sundae composed of a hot, homemade brownie topped with one or two scoops of ice cream, hot fudge, and caramel sauce. One scoop of root beer ice cream and one scoop of Mimi's Mud, an espresso ice cream containing chocolate chips and homemade fudge, filled my eco-friendly compostable bowl along with whipped cream sprinkled with nuts. And, of course, there was a cherry on top.
Out of all three of the flavors that my dad and I chose, I liked the Caramel Cone Explosion the best because of its more customary and light taste. But the contrast between the warm brownie and the cool ice cream of my Screamin' Mimi was divine. The brownie was very filling and soft, and the light whipped cream on top of the scoops made my sundae all the better. As a result, The Screamin' Mimi may be my favorite ice cream sundae as of yet.
Nimble & Finn's:
Another favorite ice cream boutique among locals is Nimble & Finn's, situated on Fourth Street in Santa Rosa. First opened in Guerneville, then at a second location in Santa Rosa three years ago, two sisters own the shop and handmake Nimble & Finn's ice cream from organic dairy that is produced locally and plant-based ingredients. Although their ice creams come in seasonal flavors, there were lavender honeycomb, whiskey butterscotch, a new flavor of raspberry chocolate chip, a vegan passion orange guava sorbet, and hokey pokey, another new savor, in April, when I took a look around the shop.
The ice cream from Nimble & Finn's tasted herby, like it was made from garden items such as flowers and honey, rather than of the traditional sweetness you might find in a grocery store scoop. The hokey pokey ice cream, as well as the lavender honeycomb, contained honeycomb candy, which is made from honey, cane sugar, baking soda, and golden syrup. With these natural ingredients, Nimble & Finn's ice cream is not as creamy as the ice cream from other local shops, though it may be more healthy.
Despite not being the richest in the texture department, the customer service at the shop was undeniably outstanding. My server, Ileene Christian-Torres, was very amiable. She took the time to explain what ingredients were in each ice cream that I sampled using reusable metal spoons, without me even asking. Staffed by such kind servers, Nimble & Finn's received many customers across the age spectrum, who would come in to buy ice cream in iconic waffle cones.
Noble Folk Ice Cream & Pie Bar:
Also located on Fourth Street in downtown Santa Rosa, the charming Noble Folk Ice Cream & Pie Bar can be distinguished by its gray-and-white-striped awning and Progress Pride Flag that proudly waves in the wind.
"I like the store because it supports the LGBTQ community," said Nguyen, who also goes to Noble Folk every month. "I really like their Thai tea ice cream, and they have more unique flavors."
Opened in 2018, Santa Rosa's Noble Folk is the business's second location, founded after Noble Folk's first store was established in Healdsburg in 2014. Upon entering the shop downtown, which is smaller than Nimble & Finn’s, I asked employee Destiny Ahmad which flavor of Noble Folk's homemade ice cream she would recommend to a first-timer at the store. Her response was the Homemade "Oreo," passionfruit, and raspberry blood orange, all her own favorite flavors at the shop. So, I ordered a small cup of Homemade "Oreo," after which my mom selected a small cup of passionfruit ice cream.
My Homemade "Oreo" ice cream was exquisitely creamy, filled with soft Oreo cookie bits. It tasted like cookies and cream ice cream, but was much more rich. Compared to Screamin' Mimi's, Nguyen said that "the quality of [Noble Folk] ice cream is better, and it's creamier." Although I really liked Screamin' Mimi's ice cream, I did also enjoy the richness of my Homemade "Oreo."
However, if you think the creamy ice cream from Noble Folk nourishes the soul, the bright yellow passionfruit ice cream that my mom ordered reinvigorates the spirit. The fruit-flavored ice cream was extremely refreshing. The texture felt like a sorbet, and it had a tarty flavor. The passionfruit ice cream was "not very creamy," and "tasted a little like pineapple," my mom said, but it made us feel fresh and clean after each taking a bite.
With these three ice cream shops right near home, I am counting down the days until the sunny season arrives. I can't wait to see what new, energizing flavors each of these ice cream boutiques will delight customers with as the sunshine returns, and I am ready for a Sonoma County summer!