Here's the scoop: Ice-cream sandwiches maybe here to stay as upscale desserts

Nation's Restaurant News, May 7, 2001 by Florence Fabricant

Ice cream is everywhere. A scoop is parked alongside almost every dessert tartlet, set to melt atop those ubiquitous molten chocolate cakes or planted in pools of fruit soup. And now everyday ice-cream treats are making serious inroads on otherwise-high-falutin' dessert menus. You may not see customers at white-tablecloth operations licking icecream cones, but the ice-cream sandwich is probably here to stay.

A traditional commercial ice-cream sandwich is vanilla or chocolate between somewhat soggy chocolate cookies. Straightforward chocolate and vanilla ice-cream sandwiches are served at Lot 61 and Angelo & Maxie's in New York, but elsewhere pastry chefs have come up with an array of variations.

They are baking their own cookies, often chocolate chip but in other flavors also, to pair with unusual ice creams. And the sandwiches frequently are plated with a garnish of some sort, such as a fruit compote or a dark drizzle of sauce.

Wayne Harley Brachman is the executive pastry chef for Michael Jordan's The Steak House N.Y.C. and Strip House in New York -- and until it closed last month, Tapika. He has designed a trio of sandwiches: a toasted coconut crackie ice-cream sandwich on a devil's food wafer, a chocolate ice-cream sandwich with hazelnut-dried cherryToll House cookies and a mango-fudge ice-cream sandwich on a cornmeal-molasses cookie with pumpkin seeds.

Blackbird in Chicago has an apple butter ice-cream sandwich made with graham cookies and plated with a caramel apple-cranberry compote. Scopa in New York uses Tahitian vanilla gelato in an ice-cream sandwich made with chocolate-hazelnut-praline cookies and chocolate sauce.

Upstairs at the Pudding in Boston has come up with a duo of ice-cream sandwiches, one made with chocolate chip cookies and burnt sugar ice cream and the other using oatmeal-pecan cookies and banana ice cream. Moomba in New York offers a mint chocolate chip ice-cream sandwich made with chocolate cookies.

At Elaine's on Franklin, in Durham, N.C., the ice cream is tart-sweet Meyer lemon on lemon-vanilla wafers glossed with a rich, warm blueberry sauce.

These days the soda-fountain treats on upscale menus also go beyond ice-cream sandwiches to include even banana splits. An example is the one made with brownies and vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream at Jianna in San Francisco. More classic versions are to be had at Brasserie 81/2 in New York and at Tsunami in East Hampton, N.Y.

Customers can choose between a banana split and an ice-cream sandwich at Lot 61 in New York.

Perhaps the most exotic banana split is served at Rambutan in Chicago. It's a tropical fruit extravaganza with layers of crushed ice, jackfruit, pineapple, sweet young coconut, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and caramelized bananas.

Sundaes without the bananas continue to make a strong showing, especially if they're plated on brownies. At Saketini in Napa, Calif., a warm brownie sundae piled with vanilla ice cream comes drenched in Kahlua hot fudge sauce. And at Bridge Cafe in Westport, Conn., the inventive brownie sundae combines brownies with malt ball ice cream, fudge and whipped cream.

As for those ice-cream cones, it would seem as though a number of operations are poised to serve them since several, including the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., already are using cones fitted into special holders for amuse bouches. In the meantime let's not overlook the miniature chocolate-coated ice-cream pops that sometimes come with the petits fours at the Sea Grill in New York.