Scoops, Mashti Malone, and Milk

After my dinner at Providence, I just had to visit a few dessert spots even though I was pretty stuffed. But I wanted to make my trip worthwhile since we had driven so far.

In the last few years, I've become pretty obsessed with ice cream, especially with trying different unique ice cream flavors that you can't normally find. So I did a search for good ice cream spots in LA and found two that looked promising.

Our first stop was Scoops.

Scoops
712 N Heliotrope Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90029, USA
(323) 906-2649

Scoops has gotten thousand of rave reviews. It's a small spot that makes fresh ice cream daily. The laundry list of flavors this place has created is incredibly impressive. The only downside is that they only offer about a dozen or so of their crazy creations each day, so you never really know what you are getting.

The staff here is friendly and generous with the samples. The "scoops" are generous as well. One scoop is actually two big scoops. You can also get a refill for $2 if you keep your cup.

On the night I arrived, a bunch of the flavor bins were already empty. The ones offered were definitely unique, but not necessarily ones that I would enjoy. Some of the offerings included brown bread, oyster, goat cheese lavender, roasted rice with white chocolate, chocolate pomegranate, salty chocolate, roasted corn, vanilla jim bean, mango pineapple coke sorbet, pear plum wine sorbet, banana marsala wine. I ended up getting the goat cheese lavender and the brown bread, which is their most popular flavor. 

I really liked the brown bread. It had crunchy grape nuts inside and it reminded me a lot like the secret breakfast from Slocombe that I enjoyed so much. I was lucky that I got the last scoop of the brown bread. I wish there was more left so I could have taken some home. I didn't love the lavender goat cheese. I felt that the lavender
flavor was too strong, even though I usually like lavender flavored
desserts.

BF got the roasted corn. It reminded me of corn puffs.

When we were in line, we tried quite a few samples. BF was really curious about the oyster ice cream. It tasted exactly how it sounded: ice cream mixed with oyster water. I really didn't like it..and it seems like most people didn't since it was the most full bin.

The ice cream here is very soft and melty. It is a lot like the ice cream that comes out of my ice cream maker. I like the friendly atmosphere and I can see why this place is so appealing. I wish they had more flavors that day that appealed to my palette. I'll have to try this place again.

Next, we went to Milk.

7290 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 939-6455

www.themilkshop.com

Milk has homemade ice cream also, but it seems like it is most known for its blue red velvet cake. It also offers lots of homemade ice cream bars and an ice cream sandwich which uses macarons!

I thought Milk was overpriced, especially after visiting Porto's and Scoops the same day. I ended up getting one slice of blue velvet cake (it was almost $5) and a chocolate and vanilla ice cream sandwich.

The blue velvet cake was moist, flavorful, and not too sweet. It doesn't taste anything like red velvet cake. Instead, this cake is made with blueberries.

I also liked the ice cream sandwich. I love french macarons, and seeing giant ones sandwiching ice cream was so exciting. I did find that it was a bit too sweet, but other than that, it was enjoyable. There are quite a few ice cream sandwich flavors, I chose the vanilla and chocolate one.

I enjoyed the stuff I got from Milk, but I still feel it was expensive.

Mashti Malone

1525 N La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Neighborhood: Hollywood
(323) 874-6168

www.mashtimalone.com

Mashti was on my maybe list of places to try, depending on how the night went. Since I didn't get many flavors I liked at Scoops, I decided to try my luck at Mashti's. I was surprised that it was in an almost empty plaza and the store was pretty empty too. Since Mashti is so well known, I expected it to be packed.

The storefront is pretty humble. Mashti serves Persian ice cream, and is an institution in LA, having been around for over 20 years. The store is full of pictures of celebrities enjoying its ice cream. When we were driving over, BF commented "Now we are in Hollywood area, we are guaranteed to see a celebrity." I just laughed, since we don't usually run into anyone.

But sure enough, when we got there, there were only two other customers, and one of them I recognized from a show that I watch. He's also been in a few movies I've seen.

To my delight, the flavors offered were much more to my liking: lavender, green tea, lychee, creamy rosewater, coconut pineapple, saffron rosewater. I tried several samples,. and I liked them all. Of course it doesn't taste like regular ice cream flavors, especially the Persian flavors, but I really enjoyed them. They all have a "taste" to them, using herbs/spices like the ones you'd find in the cuisine.

There were also some more American traditional flavors:

A hand packed pint is only $5, a lot cheaper than other ice cream places. Apparently there are also quite a few grocery stores that carry Mashti's ice cream. I'll have to look for it in San Diego. My favorite was the creamy rosewater. I''m glad I visited Mashti's. It satisfied my ice cream cravings that night. BF didn't like the taste of any of the ice creams though, so I guess it's not for everyone.

Blueberry muffins

One of my favorite blueberry baked goods is definitely blueberry muffins. I've been wanting to make blueberry muffins for a while now, but I kept not having time.

Once I started baking them, I remembered again how quick they are to make. They are even quicker to make if you don't go through with adding the streusel topping. I personally like how the muffins look without the streusel. The streusel hides some of the bright bleeding blue berries. But once I tasted them with the streusel, I knew it was worth the extra step. The streusel adds a whole new dimension to the blueberry muffins and makes them really delicious.

I could eat these all day long. This was the first recipe I ever used to make blueberry muffins. I know I should try out some other recipes, but it's hard to go away from such a great recipe. I'll try out some other recipes later, but I had to make this one first.

Blueberry muffins (recipe from Colleen on allrecipes)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 cups fresh blueberries

Streusel topping
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full, and sprinkle with streusel topping mixture.
3. To Make Streusel Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking. (I mixed with fork and then mixed with my hands, pressing the mixture together and then rubbing it between my fingers to make it crumbly)
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Benihana

Benihana Restaurant
477 Camino Del Rio S
San Diego, CA
(619) 298-4666
www.benihana.com

We celebrated Little Sister and her boyfriend's birthday two weeks ago. It took place a few hours after the epic Gaslamp Food tasting tour. I didn't think I'd be able to eat at all, but somehow was able to eat again by the time dinner rolled around.

It's been a really long time since I visited Benihana. I don't think there is much to say about the food. The food is nothing special and you are mainly there for the show and the group friendly environment. I would love to experience teppanyaki in Japan one day. I've experienced it in Taiwan and the food was incredibly good.

For some reason, every time I go to Benihana, we seem to get the chefs that are particularly inexperienced. I've heard of great shows, but my chef always seems to be dropping his knives and messing up. I'll let this post mainly be a picture post.

The special going on was a two person dinner for $39, chicken and filet mignon. Almost everyone went with that, except Little Sis got the Seafood trio. I will say that the seafood trio tasted better than I expected. Everything else was just okay. The food was simply cooked, so there's not much to talk about.

We started with some cocktails:

Our meals came with mushroom soup:

Salad:

Little Bro ordered a seared beef appetizer:

Lil Sis' BF ordered a Las Vegas sushi roll:

Here is the famous fried rice:

Here's our food slowly coming onto the table:

At the end, the birthday kids were serenaded with a song and given some pineapple.