LA (Manhattan Beach), California – Manhattan Beach Creamery

Restaurant: Manhattan Beach Creamery
Cuisine: Desserts/Ice Cream/Frozen Yogurt/Cookies
Last visited: October 4, 2011
Location: Los Angeles, California (Manhattan Beach)
Address: 1120 Manhattan Ave
Price Range: $10USD or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 5 (based on what I tried)
Service: 3
Ambiance: 4
Overall: 4
Additional comments:

• Home made ice cream
• Everything is hand made
• Made in small batches
• Frozen yogurt
• Sundaes
• Cookies/pastries/cakes
• Ice cream sandwiches
• Frozen bananas
• Variety of flavours
• Candy shop
• Local favourite
• Family friendly
• Eat In/Take out
• Mon-Sun 11am-10pm

**Recommendations: Ice Cream, Red Velvet Ice Cream, Ice Cream Sandwiches

Just to recap, I was on my way to a culinary tour of Jamaica (yay!) and I had a 4 hour lay over at the LAX airport (ouch!). So, I made plans to check out the Manhattan Beach dining strip.

I just finished dinner at North End Caffe, which was featured on Food Network’s Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. Well after that indulgence it was time for another indulgence, but this time something a bit sweeter.

About a 5 minute drive away form North End Caffe, right by the main part of the beach, was Manhattan Beach Creamery. It’s a classic local favourite popular for home made ice cream and other delicious frozen treats and candies. I was drooling at the door. Not even at the door, but starting from across the street.

The home made candy apples, cookies, pastries and cakes looked good…

… but so did the ice cream sandwiches and frozen bananas at the frozen bar!

Although it does offer frozen yogurt now, you don’t order frozen yogurt at a place that specializes in ice cream. Go for the ice cream… well in my case I wanted the cookie too. Kill two birds with one stone right? Or an excuse to eat two cookies at once?

The last time I had gourmet ice cream sandwiches like these were from Ruby Jewel Scoops in Portland, Oregon. Those were much more sophisticated and I did like those better, but these were still very good. I mean it’s an ice cream sandwich… how bad can that be?

On the table:

Red Velvet Ice Cream Sandwich – 4.5/6

• $3.50
• The cookies are pretty thin and generously filled with vanilla ice cream.
• I kind of wish they filled it with their Red Velvet ice cream though, and I didn’t know you could customize your own until after.
• The ice cream was hard, yet creamy and rich, but not too sweet.

• The red velvet cookies were a bit heavy on the dye, and the cocoa flavour was a bit mild, but they were still good.
• They were soft and chewy cookies, but since it was frozen they were hard, but not crunchy or crispy.
• The cookies also had some white chocolate chips in them.

**Almond Ice Cream Sandwich – 5/6

• $3.50
• There were toasted almonds crusted all around the ice cream and it gave a great crunch to the sandwich.
• The ice cream was just regular vanilla ice cream so I was a bit sad about that.
• I didn’t know you could customize your ice cream sandwich until after, otherwise I would have picked an almond ice cream.

• The ice cream was hard, creamy and rich, but I still wish it had almonds in it.
• The cookies were just chocolate chip cookies and again they were likely soft and chewy, but being in a frozen state they were hard like the red velvet ones.
• I wish the cookies were almond cookies or at least I wish they had almond pieces in them.
• It was a delicious ice cream sandwich, but almond cookies and almond ice cream would make a better almond ice cream sandwich.

Ice Cream – n/a

• I sampled a couple of their ice creams, but that’s not substantial enough to “rate” it.
• The ice cream was different in texture from what was in the ice cream sandwiches.
• The freezing temperature is different so it’s harder in the sandwiches.
• The ice cream was really rich, creamy and thick and it wasn’t as pliable, rich or sweet as Marble Slab Creamery, but it was a bit reminiscent.
• It’s home made in small batches and I liked it better than Marble Slab, but both are heavy duty ice creams. This one wasn’t as rich or sweet though, and it didn’t make me feel sick afterward.
• I wouldn’t say it was gourmet, but it was still good.

Red Velvet Ice Cream – n/a

• I tried this and there were pieces of moist red velvet cake throughout. Cake and ice cream is never a bad combo.

Pistachio Ice Cream – n/a

• This one was a bit too artificial in pistachio flavour for my liking.
• The pistachio nut flavour kind of kicked in at the end, but overall I wasn’t too keen on it.

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