Ice Cream Mondaes: Scoops Westside

The walls of Scoops Westside are lined with collages made up of bits of colored tile.

However, the mosaic I found most interesting wasn’t in the front in the house, but rather in the back: a monochromatic piece found next to building materials and broken restaurant equipment that gather behind doors marked “Employees Only.”

It was a mosaic of labels stuck to the industrial freezer. Peeling reminders of tastes from days or weeks ago.

This piece of found art reveals the specialty of the creamery, rotating flavors that change daily for an ever-changing ice cream experience. The flavors aren’t flashy and exotic, but they are unique.

This evening, the options we tasted were coconut horchata, Oreo cheesecake and vanilla coffee.

The coconut horchata flavor wasn’t anything too extraordinary; it was a nice blend of sweet and savory. The aftertaste, however, added a refreshingly gritty, sweet tinge of coconut that propelled the flavor out of the norm.

The Oreo cheesecake flavor took a dessert that we loved and adapted it perfectly in scoopable form. Containing a combination of crunchy cookie bits, it still managed to keep the tangy creaminess of cheesecake.

Vanilla coffee was the runaway winner of this week’s friendly flavor competition. Most coffee-flavored ice cream go too wild on the sugar and cream and lack the actual fresh-brewed taste you get from a good cup of joe. Scoops didn’t fall into this common syrupy trap: A strong, bitter coffee flavor provided the foundation for a delicious splash of vanilla.

This creamery is a creamy compromise between the fancy boutique ice cream shops serving strange creations and the chains found in mall food courts across America.

So here’s the scoop: This Westside ice cream parlor is nothing too adventurous, but it specializes in elevating usual, tried and tested flavors above normalcy.