Well I have the good fortune to be located very near to such a place. It's called Thomas Sweet.
It is an ice cream shop (that also has a chocolate & candy chain) that has different branches in various places in New Jersey. The people working there (at the New Brunswick chain, at least) are very nice and accommodating, as well as willing to explain the tons of interesting flavors and toppings available. The quality of everything there is without flaw; not once has my ice cream has frostbite or weird gooey areas that are indicative of old age. There is excellent turnover of their products because this shop is known to many; it is a popular location. Additionally, they are pretty generous with their serving sizes, especially amount of toppings and amount of frozen yogurt.
I went there today, not for the first time. Unfortunately, I was too interested in consuming my delicious treat to take a picture. However, allow me to paint you a mental image.
Imagine a plastic cup. Like one of these, except flatter. These are actually extremely annoying, because the little ridges prevent proper consumption of every bit of ice cream in the bowl. Why can't they utilize bowls with smooth insides? I need to start a movement for that.
And then imagine choosing from an array of wondrous flavors, ranging from Chocolate Covered Strawberry to Truffle to Kahlúa. You simply cannot decide, and choose to have one scoop each of Vanilla Malt (think whopper-infused ice cream) & Dexter Freebish (vanilla with chocolate chunks, caramel swirl, and salted cashews).Oh, and rainbow sprinkles. The good kind. Have you ever had the bad kind? They are larger, definitely not sugar, and taste miserable. Who even wastes money on generic sprinkles these days, they're so not worth it.
You take your homely plastic spoon, make it squirm its way slightly into this perfectly textured ice cream that's not too soft and not too hard, and pick up a small amount of what appears to be the vanilla malt (both ice creams are hidden underneath a coating of crunchy rainbow bits) that is just about to drip and has a slight scattering of rainbow sprinkles. Tentatively, you bring the spoon to your mouth. The smell of malt hits your nostrils and they flare slightly in anticipation of the deliciousness that is coming their way. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the ice cream start to drip for real, and you quickly put the plastic spoon in your mouth to prevent any of it from going to waste.
At that point, you realize you would lick any drops of ice cream off the table, if need be. Ok maybe not, maybe it's just me and my friends who would do that ... but then again, we do have an obsession with licking things. It's unexplainable, really.
Anyway, you continue to eat rainbow sprinkle-laden bites of vanilla malt when you happen upon the motherload: the tons of small chocolate chunks and pieces of salted cashew intermingled in rivers of caramel*. You look to the heavens and become aware of some powerful force that has led you to this moment, for what could possibly be better?
So sorry for the lack of pictures. I hope the above sufficed. Tomorrow, I believe I am eating there again, and this time, it will be my dinner. So I will be getting something extravagant. We shall see.
*I love finding the corresponding asterisk to the one in the body of the writing! It's such a thrill, kind of like slowly removing a bandaid from a sensitive area. Anyway, were you aware that the proper way to pronounce "caramel" is [car - a - mul] ? I know some people say "carmel" and others say "care - a - mell" (like I), but a combination of the two? That's just werd, to me, at least.
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