The Great Seattle Ice Cream Quest Round 1: Molly Moon's

In Seattle, we take our summers very seriously. We like the outdoors, but the weather isn't always great. So, in that brief window of time called summer, people are desperate to lay in the grass, go swimming, hike Mount Si, and most importantly, eat ice cream.

There are quite a few ice cream shops around for a place that's famous for raining most of the year, and it's my personal mission to visit them all (all the ones I deem worthy, anyway).

Molly Moon's is one of the most popular ice cream establishments in the city, with frequent lines out the door on sunny days. Okay, partly sunny days, too. Or maybe just non-rainy days. Any excuse for an ice cream! I first visited the Wallingford branch years ago while attending the UW and, after a long wait for an unmemorable sorbet, didn't bother going back. Until recently. I now live mere blocks from the Capitol Hill location, and in the haze of frozen dessert insanity that descends upon Seattle on those non-rainy days (okay, maybe just not-the-dead-of-winter days) and my own failing battle with uncontrollable sugarlust, I decided to give it another go.

And so my quest for the greatest of frozen treats has its first contender: earl grey ice cream. With vanilla bean caramel sauce. And walnuts. And whipped cream. Maraschino cherry optional.

I wouldn't normally get a sundae on a simple ice cream outing. I mean, I'm already getting ice cream (who am I kidding, I'm getting hot fudge, too)--is all that other stuff necessary? Yes. It is. Whipped cream is good on everything. I like nuts, but usually I think they get in the way of my desire to shovel as much ice cream into my mouth as possible. That's not the case here, as the ice cream is so creamy that you want to take it slow anyway, and the flavor is robust enough to handle it. I tried a couple other things on other occasions, like the thin mint ice cream with chocolate sauce, but found the chocolate sauce to be too overpowering. Then there was the maple walnut in a waffle cone. While the waffle cone was good, it was too sweet, and that could be why I didn't think the flavors of the ice cream were very pronounced. For now, the earl grey sundae remains my top choice.

Strawberry sour scream with sprinkles

While I had this post in draft, my boyfriend and I stopped by and got some ice cream. I got one of their special rotating flavors, strawberry sour cream, and it was great in a waffle cone. Few things are as delightful as walking around on a hot day with an ice cream cone!

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