Bi Rite Creamery

Living in Seattle, I am somewhat spoiled by the phenomenon of small batch, locally sourced, fancy pants ice cream. I appreciate the interesting flavors, and the artistry and the small creamery mentality for sure, but sometimes, in a land so flooded with high quality, amazing ice cream, I come to *expect* these things as they've become almost commonplace. An ice cream cone that really STANDS out seems to be a rarer and rarer occurrence, but my mouth waters now reflecting on a transcendental cone that I ate in San Francisco.

In a similar fashion to our local beloved creameries, the Bi Rite Creamery in the Mission had a line out the door and snaking down the block when I paid a call. I waited in the lovely balmy afternoon (summer seemed to have hit San Francisco before we got ours!), watching cone after delicious cone emerge from the shop.

Photo from http://sweets.seriouseats.com/

Bi Rite has plenty of interesting indie-shop style flavors: browned butter pecan, toasted banana, peanut butter malt, Mexican chocolate, ginger, etc, but I chose my old standard: salted caramel. One lick nearly brought me to my knees. This was not the excessively salty, cloyingly caramely salted caramel that we know around home. This ice cream was mildly sweet, mildly salty, and nearly bitter with the rich deep brown flavor of burned sugar. I hadn't tasted salted caramel ice cream like this since I first ate it (Dulce de Leche) in Argentina. I have to admit, I stopped walking and focused every ounce of my being around this ice cream cone, tasting it with full awareness to the very last melty drop.

A scoop of Bi Rite Salted Caramel ice cream.  Photo from http://www.foodspotting.com/reviews/1639284