Vegan & Raw Ice Cream at Kind Kreme

After my delicious vegan Big Mac attack at Doomie's, I came back to my car to find a smashed window. No bueno, and since I had to be in Beverly Hills later in the day I couldn't make it back home. The only place that could immediately repair my window was in Burbank, so I began the trek.

The upside of this detour was that if I had time, on the way back I would be passing by the Studio City location of Kind Kreme, LA's raw vegan ice cream chain. The window repair guy finished his work in a half hour flat, which gave me just enough time to stop by Kind Kreme for a couple scoops.

After browsing the selections, I stood in line waiting to order behind two younger moms, both of whom had at least two kids in tow, which was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. It's such a joy to see parents feeding their kids vegan sweets. I went ahead and ordered a single scoop, which can actually be two different small scoops if you like. My choices: coffee cacao nib and mint cacao nib.

Mint and chip ice cream has been one of my lifelong favorites, so I was really excited about this. However, while I could tell real mint was used, this flavor was far too icy, not nearly creamy enough to properly resemble ice cream. The flavor was excellent, but the texture was off.

Luckily, the coffee cacao nib flavor totally remedied this issue. It was perfectly creamy, with a bold but not overpowering coffee flavor. Cacao nibs are probably better than chocolate chips in ice cream, and this flavor was everything I dreamed of.

Kind Kreme has about 12 flavors of traditional ice cream available at all times. Add to that two flavors of soft serve, ice cream sandwiches, splits, floats and some small plates of regular lunch food, and the menu becomes pretty sufficient. I appreciate that they offer real food but I think concentrating on just the ice cream might be a more solid business model.

My single scoop (more like two) was around $5, which was a little pricey but reflected the quality of the ingredients used. Not all the flavors are vegan, the 100% raw flavors are sweetened with raw honey, which is claimed to be ethically sourced on the KK website. The ice creams are all cashew based.

While I think they have a little refining to do still, I look forward to the day when Kind Kremes replace Baskin Robbins in every suburban strip mall in the country. I'm sure John Robbins would approve. With locations in Pasadena, Studio City and Silverlake, they're well on their way. Rumor has it they will be opening up in OC soon also, and I will certainly be visiting on our scorching summer days.

Click here to visit the Kind Kreme site.

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Comments

[Healthy Party Girl]

Mint & chocolate is the best flavour combination of anything, hands down.