Thursday, September 3, 2015

Ice Cream Truck In The Western County -- Go Now For Handmade Cups And Sweet Sandwiches

Local ice cream at the Scoop & Paddle food truck
People often ask me where to find homemade ice cream in Howard County, and now I need to tell you to buy it on the road.

From a VW bus, that is.  From a new food truck working the western county selling cups and ice cream sandwiches filled with their own rich, creamy ice cream.

Mrs. HowChow saw the sign for Scoop & Paddle at their summer home, River Hill Garden Center in Clarksville.  It's a spectacularly outfitted VW bus where they offer about a dozen flavors from chocolates to fruits to an experimental "coffee and doughnuts."


Ice cream outdoors just tastes better.  It's an event to go for a drive.  It's more delicious to spoon ice cream while you're watching traffic and feeling the weather outside.

Scoop & Paddle does a high-end update on cafeteria ice cream.  The $3.50 cups are white paper circles with white paper tops.  You grab a wooden paddle to use as your spoon.  The ice cream inside goes way beyond a cafeteria.  They make their own ice cream, apparently with a bunch of seasonal fruits at the front of the menu.

Lil' Chow went chocolate.  He loves salted caramel that we buy at Harris Teeter, but he has ordered chocolate when we're out.  He squatted happily on the River Hill parking lot and shared his chocolate.  I thought it was excellent.  Deep flavor.  Creamy, rich ice cream.  Mrs. HowChow went "coffee and doughnuts."  Again, an excellent ice cream.  She could have taken even stronger coffee flavor, and we're already thinking about when we can go back to try a $5.50 ice cream sandwich with house-made ice cream between house-made cookies.

You need to go get try Scoop & Paddle this week.  Go tonight.  Go this weekend.  You're reading a Howard County food blog.  How could you not want local ice cream from a refit VW bus?  Go on a date.  Take your kids.  Do whatever you need to soak up an ice cream experience while the days are still warm enough to warrant a frozen dessert.

Since late July, Scoop & Paddle has been parking at the garden center on Thursday to Saturday evenings.  They're switching soon to a fall schedule, and you'll be able to catch them at the Western Regional Park in Cooksville or a few options in Clarksville, including at River Hill football games.

Find Scoop & Paddle's schedule on their Twitter page or Facebook page.  Clarksville is an easy run from Fulton, Columbia and most of the western county.

Ice cream is a rough business because winter comes for so much of our year.  Many people have asked for shops that make their own ice cream.  I recommend a bunch of great frozen experiences, but I think they mostly sell chain ice cream like Hershey's or Baltimore brands like Taharka Brothers at Scoop Ah Dee Doo in Ellicott City.  Does anyone else know someone selling local ice cream like Scoop & Paddle?

The only thing missing from Scoop & Paddle is a few chairs.  The cups, sandwiches and $10.50 pints lend themselves to carrying away, and leaning against a car works fine if you don't have a toddler  But a few chairs -- think cheap and modern -- could help create a little scene outside the bus.

8 comments:

Maria said...

Nothing in HoCo, but the Maryland Ice Cream Trail is a good place to start!
http://marylandsbest.net/wp-content/uploads/IceCreamTrailBrochure2015-Final.pdf

Anonymous said...

Tried them with kids and the kids absolutely loved the chocolate chocolate chip. What a great find!

L. Butts said...

What a delight! The ice cream is absolutely the best, flavors are unique, and the group at Scoop and Paddle offer service with such pride and enthusiasm. The owner, Nadine, and Renee (marketing) and all the crew are superb! I take my Scoop and Paddle freezer bag and fill up!!! Thanks for such a refreshing treat!

Cjk said...

We went on Sunday and it was superb. I had peach cobbler, fresh peaches and a crunchy brown sugar oat pieces. My daughter got salted Carmel and really liked it, she said it was better than Hagen Dazs.

dzoey said...

Good ice cream, worth stopping for when in Clarksville (or wherever the van is at the time). I had the peach cobbler sandwich which was peach cobbler ice cream between two very good oatmeal raisin cookies. The only downside is that since all the ice cream is pre-packed in their Kensington facility, you can't get a taste. They are willing to take back any ice cream you don't like, but tasting ice cream isn't a question of like or not like, almost all ice cream is good, it's a question of which flavor is better. The reason the ice cream is pre-packaged is that the health department won't let them scoop fresh ice cream, though I don't recall the reason (needs running water?)

Still, the ice cream my daughter and I tried was very good and the people in the van are nice.

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