Sunday, January 11, 2015

Fentons Creamery - Oakland

5/5 stars

THE ICE CREAM: 5 stars for the ice cream. I had dinner at Fenton's on Saturday. It is now Monday and I still feel like I have ice cream in my veins. I started with a pistachio milkshake with real whip cream. The flavor was very strong. Their ice cream selection takes up two whole glossy pages of the menu. To help you decide, you can either A) go up to the glass freezer and ask for a sample or two or three or B) admire the revolving glass refrigerator with "mock" sundaes. I finally decided on the banana split junior (cookies n' cream, raspberry vanilla, swiss chocolate, marshmallow sauce, hot fudge, caramel, whip, banana, almonds, and a cherry) which ended up being four times as big as a regular sized banana split bought elsewhere. It was pure delight. My date ordered the highly recommended Black n' Tan.

THE HIGHLIGHTS: Their cookies n' cream is the best I've ever had. There are big chucks of oreo cookies and you can literally taste the butter. The toasted almond ice cream in the Black n' Tan was truly a special ice cream (for some reason, it tasted like cherries to me...). And finally, their caramel is probably the best caramelized sugar particles in the world. I'm just saying...

THE ATMOSPHERE: Fenton's awakened my inner-five-year-old. Not that it took much to wake it. If I was a kid, I'd want my birthday parties to be held at Fenton's where the sundaes are bigger than my head. We arrived just before dinner time, at around 6 o'clock and it was already packed (with at least 3 or 4 birthday parties going on). Instead of waiting 20 to 25 minutes for a table, I was quite alright with sitting at the counter and watching the cooks rush around, building huge salads and making crab sandwiches. It's too bad that the counter isn't up against where all the sundaes were being magically created.

THE FOOD: 3 stars for the food. The food was decent American diner. I had the BLT + avocado. I was happy with my choice. The bacon wasn't burnt, they were generous with the avocado, and it wasn't gloppy with mayo. Fries were regular, nothing special. My hot date had the famous crab sandwich. I usually like my sandwiches with some stuff in it -- like onions or tomatoes, but the crab sandwich was just bread, a leaf of lettuce, and crab. I guess they didn't dress it up much so that when you bite into it, all you get is a mouthful of crab. That ain't so bad.

(2007)

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