Fragaria New Zealand Style Ice Cream in Orlando, FL

I found Fragaria New Zealand Style Ice Cream at the Orlando Fringe Festival. This ice cream truck was new to me, as was New Zealand style ice cream. They basically took scoops of vanilla ice cream, put it into a machine with various types of fruit, mixed the ingredients and spit it out in soft serve form. 

I ordered the Berry Pistachio Crunch. This was blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries swirled with vanilla ice cream, topped with roasted pistachios and chocolate. I very much enjoyed the flavor combination!

NY Street Food #2: DiSO's Italian Sandwich Society, Halal Carts, and Mister Softee

In a continuation of the last few posts here on Watch Me Eat about foods consumed while in New York, this post is all about various street foods from my most recent trip to the area. My street food adventure began on Governor's Island. Here, I had lunch from a food truck called DiSo's Italian Sandwich Society. As the name implies, they served various types of Italian style sandwiches.

I had a sandwich called Jimmy Two Times. This consisted of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, sauteed eggplant, sweet roasted peppers, and herbed ricotta spread. The sandwich was served on a bread with a very nice, chewy crust.

The generous amount of prosciutto on the sandwich was sliced very thinly, but the amount of eggplant on the sandwich wasn't nearly as generous. Even worse, I found lots of thin strips of aluminum foil which had somehow made its way into the sandwich with the eggplant. I had unfortunately bought the last sandwich of the day from DiSO's and they closed after making my sandwich, so I couldn't go back to complain. I peeled most of the foil out for this next picture. Could have been a good sandwich. Too bad it was ruined by aluminum foil...

Up next on my street food adventure was Kimo's Halal Food. This Halal cart was parked on a corner across from Bryant Park. I saw somewhere on this cart that Kimo's was serving Egyptian food. I honestly didn't notice a difference in the menu that made this cart any more Egyptian than any other similar cart in the city.

I ordered the Lamb Platter. Like most Halal carts, this consisted of a mountain of rice topped with gyro meat. Iceberg lettuce was served on the side as a salad. The entire thing was smothered in both white sauce and hot sauce. This was very tasty. I do enjoy eating large amounts of Middle Eastern food covered in delicious sauces.

After exploring Central Park, I decided to stop for food and visited another Halal cart. This cart was set up on the edge of the park at Bolivar Plaza. I didn't see a name associated with this cart.

 

Here, I ordered a falafel platter. Pretty same setup as the Lamb from Kimo's, but nowhere as good. The falafel was served in crumbs and tasted burnt. The rice was it bit hard as well. I don't know if I got the bottom of the barrel, or if this cart was just bad. Don't get food from here.

For my last bit of street food from this visit to New York, I had some Mister Softee from a truck parked outside the 190th Street Subway Station.

I had a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate. It tasted exactly how a dipped Mister Softee cone should!

Lu Lu's Ice Cream Shop in Winter Park, FL

Lu Lu's Ice Cream Shop is located in the parking lot of Eat More Produce in Winter Park. Lu Lu's is in a very small building. They actually appear to be in a shed. The shed is very nicely painted to look like a house. Regardless of their small size, they had a good selection of ice cream flavors.

I decided to try their blood orange sorbet on my last visit here. I was actually a bit surprised by the color of the ice cream. It lacked both the deep red of blood orange or the brighter orange of most orange sorbets. Instead, the sorbet was more of a tan color. This probably means Lu Lu's doesn't artificially color their ice cream, which is a good thing. The sorbet was very tasty, with a fresh orange taste. Citrus flavored sorbets are always refreshing to me for some reason.

I like the ice cream at Lu Lu's. I'll definitely be stopping here again sometime in the future...

The Whip Ice Cream Truck in Orlando, FL

I watched the fireworks at Lake Eola this year on July 4th. While there, I bought some ice cream from a truck called The Whip. They served ice cream where they would blend vanilla with a large selection of flavors to come up with over 40 different varieties. Shaved ice was also available, but I stuck with the ice cream.

My flavor selection for the night was the blueberry cheesecake. A cup of vanilla soft serve was filled and a container filled with the flavoring was removed from a freezer. Both were taken to a separate machine where they were blended together into a purple tinted ice cream. The flavor wasn't as strong as I've had elsewhere. I could taste a bit of berry flavor but didn't taste much cheesecake. Regardless, the ice cream was good enough and it was an interesting process to watch how they got all those flavors out of one soft serve machine.

Mister Softee Ice Cream Truck

Mister Softee is an ice cream truck franchise that seems to be very prevalent in the New York/New Jersey area. These trucks are found all over the place, whether it be in a city park, street corner, or doing the traditional ice cream truck thing by driving around residential neighborhoods. Unlike many of the ice cream trucks that are found down south, Mister Softee serves soft serve ice cream rather than only pre-packaged stuff. On my various visits up north, somehow I always find myself making a purchase from a Mister Softee truck. There's really nothing exceptional about the ice cream, but I enjoy the novelty of ice cream trucks. Here's a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate from a Mister Softee that I waved down on Long Island.

Mister Softee trucks make it to the middle of the East River too. I found this truck parked on Governor's Island. I noticed the Mister Softee trucks parked in New York City parks have much higher prices than the trucks that drive around outside the city.

Mister Softee recently appeared in Orlando for a while. This Mister Softee truck was often found at the local food truck events and was occasionally spotted driving around neighborhoods. I'm not entirely sure if this truck is still around, but it has been a while since I've seen the Orlando Mister Softee Truck.

One thing that bothered me about the Orlando Mister Softee was that the people running it said it was impossible to dip a cone in both sauce (chocolate or cherry) and nuts. The Mister Softee trucks up north all do it, so I don't see while it would be impossible in Florida. Here's a cherry dipped vanilla cone from the Orlando truck when they were at Lake Lily in Maitland.

This discussion of ice cream trucks has become much longer than I originally intended when I started writing this post, but I enjoy ice cream trucks. I apparently enjoy writing about them too...

JR's Softie in Orlando, FL

JR's Softie is an ice cream truck that has been serving soft serve ice cream around Orlando for a while now. I actually attempted to get ice cream from JR's a couple of times in Lake Eola, but they always drove away as I was approaching the truck.

Recently, I was at the Maitland Art Festival at Lake Lily and saw that JR's Softie was parked there. I decided I could go for some dessert and approached. This time, they didn't drive away! I wanted a soft serve cone dipped in the hard chocolate but they didn't have any of the chocolate dip. Instead, I settled on a plain vanilla cone.

It tasted like soft serve from an ice cream truck should. The prices at JR's were higher that the Mister Softee truck that is normally found in Lake Lily and it's a shame that they didn't have the chocolate dip, but regardless, I enjoyed my dessert.

NYC Street Food #1

Everyone seems to love food trucks, so why not do a post about the trucks in place where they were popular long before other parts of the country? That's right, this post is all about some of the various food trucks that I came across in New York City. Didn't get to try many, but I can only eat so much...

Taco truck in Manhattan's Meatpacking District...


Mister Softee in Flushing Meadows Park ($5 for a cone is kind of pricy).


Lots of food trucks seemed to park near the High Line in Chelsea. Here's an Organic Soft Serve Ice Cream Truck...


Mexican Ice on the High Line...


I had a sour cherry shaved ice from The People's Pops. I liked their hand ice shaving system...

New York has food truck events too. At the north end of the High Line there was something called Rainbow City with lots of inflatables. Moon walks are fun, but not as fun as food trucks. Here's Kelvin Natural Slush Co.

Custom ice cream sandwiches from the Cool Haus...

Totally RAD (Rickshaw's Awesome Dumplings)...

Red Hook Lobster Pound:

Eddie's Ice Cream Truck in Long Island, NY

I love how multiple ice cream trucks pass by several times a day through neighborhoods in Long Island. While up north, I waved down one of these trucks...

Here's a Rainbow Merlin from Eddie's Ice Cream Truck in Elmont, NY. The Rainbow Merlin was a vanilla cone with the lower half dipped in sprinkles and the upper half dipped in hard chocolate.

Of course, no mention of New York ice cream trucks would be complete without Mister Softee: