Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams Coming to Bethesda (Fall 2019)

I heard about some exciting ice cream news this week - there are plans for a Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream shop to open in downtown Bethesda this Fall!  I've been to Jeni's in Atlanta as well as DC's 14th Street location and love their creative flavors and super cute decor.  I'm so excited to have one close by and can't wait to see how this location looks!

From the press release:

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams is a modern American ice cream company devoted to making the finest ice creams the world has ever known. Founded in Columbus, Ohio in 2002 by James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Jeni Britton Bauer, Jeni’s has emerged over the past 15 years as the new standard by which all other ice creams (and ice cream companies) are judged. With Jeni in charge of all creative output—from the ice cream itself to all of the supporting details that enhance the experience of eating it—Jeni’s continues to make one-of-a-kind flavors with Direct and Fair Trade ingredients and milk from family dairy farms. Today, Jeni’s is a Certified B Corporation for known for its environmental, community, and sustainable business leadership with 34 scoop shops, an online shop at jenis.com, and distribution in top grocery stores across the country.

Georgetown Cupcake - Atlanta Peach Cupcake

Congratulations to Georgetown Cupcake on their Atlanta, GA store opening in March! This Atlanta Peach cupcake was the free secret flavor recently, and it was such a cute way to celebrate the newest location.  

This cupcake was such a pretty light pink/peachy color, and smelled amazing.  You could definitely taste a lot of peach flavor in both the cake and the frosting.  I have visited friends in Atlanta a number of times, and I love the food scene there - everything I've tried there is delicious.  I hope that everyone in the area enjoys having a Georgetown Cupcake location nearby! 

Atlanta Visit - Doughnuts, Jeni's, and BBQ

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had a wonderful visit to Atlanta last month to see my friends A and D. We had a lot of food plans in our agenda, and it was great getting to check out so many places in one weekend!

My first meal upon landing in Atlanta was this plate of deliciousness, courtesy of Cypress Street Pint & Plate.  After some appetizers, D and I split an order of the Sublime Doughnut: 

½ lb burger. cheddar. caramelized onion. applewood bacon. two sublime doughnuts.  Yes, we were totally being responsible by deciding to split one order, hahaha.  The doughnut buns were so good and didn't fall apart at all from the inside ingredients, which I was very impressed by.  

After dinner, we stopped in Jeni's for ice cream.  I was super excited to check out my first Jeni's scoop shop since I normally can only buy their ice cream at grocery stores. I tried a scoop each of the Bangkok Peanut and The Milkiest Chocolate in the World.  The Bangkok Peanut was more spicy than I thought it would be, but I thought it was an interesting flavor and went well with the sweet milk chocolate.  The shop is super cute and in a very nice area with lots of shops and restaurants around it! 

One more food highlight of our weekend was at Fox Bros Bar-B-Q - mmmmmmmmmm this was so good!  We split this combo plate with chicken, ribs, wings, and beef brisket, as well as two sides of macaroni and cheese. This order was a great way for us to try a little bit of all the options, and everything was great. This was super delicious and I would definitely go back for more BBQ.

I always have a great time when I visit A and D in Atlanta and this weekend was no exception.  Special thanks to them for taking me to all of these fun places, and appreciating good food and trying new places! 

Atlanta Visit - Sprinkles Ice Cream and Cookies

During my visit to Atlanta last month to see my friends A and D, I had to schedule some time to check out the Sprinkles Ice Cream and cookie shop!  The shop is located in a mall, but there is a separate outside entrance as well - which also houses the cupcake ATM.

The interior was SUPER cute, and there was so much to look at.  Cupcakes, ice cream toppings and cones, cookies, and an extensive menu along the wall.  

Since I can get Sprinkles cupcakes in DC, I knew that my purchases would definitely be ice cream and a cookie.  The ice cream above is a kid's cup of their red velvet ice cream.  The kid's cup was the perfect size for a little snack, and as you can see there is plenty of red velvet cake inside.  I also love how the ice cream coordinated with the cup and spoon, haha.

I also bought a peanut butter pretzel chip cookie to take home - this cookie is huge!  I loved the flavor combination of this cookie, and I think this would be a big hit with any sweets fan.  Since there aren't too many outposts of Sprinkles' ice cream/cookie shops, I definitely recommend checking it ouf if you are in Atlanta! 

Sprinkles - Atlanta

3393 Peachtree Road

Atlanta, GA 30326

Lunchtime Links for August 6th, 2012

• Serious Eats: Antico pizza in Atlanta. 
• Luke's Lobster: Opening later this month in Georgetown.
• Tasty Kitchen: Nutella-stuffed French toast. 
• Eat More Drink More: Filming with the Travel Channel in DC. 
• Real Housewives of NJ: Recap from TVGasm. 

Lunchtime Links for May 15th, 2012

• Real Housewives of OC: Recap from TVGasm.
• Serious Eats: Kevin Gillespie's Atlanta food guide. 
• How Sweet It Is: Mini brown butter vanilla pound cakes. 
• Blondie and Brownie: Treats Truck shop in NYC.
• Washingtonian: Stachowski's in Georgetown.

Lunchtime Links for February 21st, 2012

• Kirbie's Cravings: Nutella cookies.
• The Pioneer Woman: Chocolate cookies with toppings.
• Gossip Girl: Recap from NYMag. 
• Serious Eats: Japanese rice ball packaging.
• Real Housewives of Atlanta: Recap from TVGasm. 

Lunchtime Links for November 29th, 2011

• Bakerella: The Muppets cake pops.
• The Budget Babe: Kristin Cavallari in Chinese Laundry.
• The Kitchn: Grilled cheese croutons for tomato soup.
• Serious Eats: Atlanta food trucks.
• Yahoo:  Ryan Gosling pancake.

Lunchtime Links for September 16th, 2011

• Cakespy: Pumpkin pull-aparts recipe.
• Eat Drink Pretty: Tea party baby shower.
• Pioneer Woman: Italian chicken soup.
• The Budget Babe: Fall shoes at Target.
• Serious Eats: Fried chicken Benedict at Highland Bakery, Atlanta.

ATL Visit - Brunchalicious!

Mmm, brunch!  I'm not normally a big "breakfast foods" person (aka, I don't love eggs), but it's slowly starting to grow on me.  Of course, the great thing about brunch is that you can get breakfast, lunch, or a little of both!

Our first brunch spot was Murphy's in the cute Virginia Highlands area.

I really liked the look of this restaurant right from the start- lots of bright, open space, a bakery right when you walk in, and cute patio seating, which is where we sat for brunch. 

Starting things off with a biscuit and a mini muffin, mmm.

D went with the Eggs Virginia Highland: spinach, mushrooms, poached eggs on focaccia, sundried tomato hollandaise.  Also, a side of grits, I believe.  I love that they used foccacia bread on this, a great bread to soak up the egg yolk and  hollandaise!

I'm pretty sure that A's dish was the Eggs T. Murphy: poached eggs, honey cured ham on english muffin, hollandaise.  Sorry, I can't remember for sure but it seems like that's what it is.  If it doesn't look like a "normal" eggs benedict to you, that may be because the hollandaise is on the side, haha.  Update: This was the corned beef hash, haha.

I went with the Eggs Slum Mulligan: poached eggs, potato hash, bacon, cheddar cheese.  And yes I mainly picked it for its name, just thought it was funny, haha.  This dish was ENORMOUS.  Even after eating as much as I could, it looked like a full plate of food.  The potatoes were crispy and delicious, I couldn't stop eating just the potatoes for a while, haha. 


Another brunch spot that we tried out was Einstein's - not to be confused with Einstein Bagels, which is a perfectly fine establishment but not really worth traveling all the way to Atlanta for, haha.

We got a yummy bread basket filled with what we thought was banana bread and pumpkin bread - reallly really hard to not fill up on the bread here!

I started off with a Summer Wedge Salad: sweet corn, citrus beets, sunflower seeds, baconbleu cheese vinaigrette.  I really enjoyed the charred corn and the crunch of the sunflower seeds especially in this salad. 

Being that it was my last full meal in Atlanta, I went all out with the Shrimp and Grits: French beans, patak sausage, pepper jack.  This was really delicious!  Not at all gritty or anything - the crunch of the French beans went really well with the smooth grits.  And the shrimp were really tasty- I'm so glad I ordered this!

A went with the Spinach feta omlette and got the side of creamed corn hush puppies so that I could try them- thanks!! Unfortunately we didn't find these as good as we had hoped - they were sorta mushy and didn't have a crispy coating on the outside like we had expected. 

Overall the brunches in Atlanta are a good mix of Southern classics and Brunch staples- a great combination if you ask me!

Murphy's

997 Virginia Avenue NE404.872.0904

Atlanta, GA 30306

Einstein's

1077 Juniper Street
Atlanta, GA 30309
404.876.7925

ATL Visit - Tasty Foods, Part 2

And here we have MORE FOOD from my visit to Atlanta, haha!

We tried out the fried chicken at the Colonnade, which appears to be a real-deal Atlanta institution of sorts.  The inside of the restaurant seemed completely unchanged in MANY years... as you might imagine, we were probably one of the youngest groups of diners there that night. 

As you can see, the restaurant serves up old-school size portions as well- haha.  

 

We got the sweet potato souffle and the celery dressing as our sides mainly because there were about 50 side options and we couldn't decide, so we went with the wild cards.  The fried chicken was piping hot when it hit our table, but as we were eating it we noticed that it was not greasy at all, as you might expect fried chicken to be.  I was downright confused that eating this chicken didn't mean having to wipe my hands on my napkin every 5 seconds.  This chicken was really good, and wasn't a gut-buster like fried chicken tends to be. 

Ok so Pinkberry isn't exactly Atlanta-specific, but I love it so of course I'm going to go if we're by one, haha.  I got the mini cup of Original froyo with honey, strawberries, and almond slivers.

As if all of this wasn't enough over the course of my visit, we of course had to stop in Cafe Intermezzo for some decadent desserts!  We picked up two cakes, which took a while since we literally could not decide from the bazillion cakes and cheesecakes they had out on display, haha.  Soooooooo rich and so good!

The Colonnade

1879 Chesire Bridge Road

Atlanta, GA 30324

404.874.5642

ATL Visit - Tasty Foods, Part 1

There's always SO much food involved on my visits to Atlanta, haha.  Not that it's a bad thing obviously, but I normally have to split up my visit into a few posts so that it's not one enormous post of all photos.

For lunch one day, A and I went to Community Q in Decatur for some tasty tasty ribs!  A had also mentioned that the mac n' cheese was good, so of course we had to get that too.  The ribs were falling off the bone and super delicious, even without anything on them!  The sauces on the tables added an extra punch of flavor to the already tasty ribs.

We later stopped in Little Cake Bakery, also known as the bakery that A and D got their wedding cupcakes from!  I finally tried the red velvet cupcake from there because I mistakenly did not try one at their wedding, haha.  It was delicious, especially the cream cheese frosting!

A and D had what I believe were the Black Bottom and Chocolate Vanilla cupcakes.  The Black Bottom cupcake is: Chocolate cake topped with a cream cheese and chocolate chip filling.  Both are super cute!

For "dinner" one night, A and I weren't super hungry after a big day of eating, so we had a romantic outdoor patio table with some wine and appetizers at Ecco, haha. 

On the left is a plate of Piquillo peppers stuffed with braised shortrib, which were rich and just the right size to go with our wine.  And then...... THEN..... on the right is the famous Fried goat cheese, honey, and black pepper appetizer!!!!!  And yes it warrants this much excitement because these were delicious!!!  When I first heard fried goat cheese, I guess was expecting something akin to a mozzerella stick - cheese with a breaded coating on the outside.  Much to my surprise, these were more batter-coated, crispy on the outside and smooth and creamy on the inside.  The addition of honey and black pepper added an interesting contrast and taste to the dish as well.  If I were more hungry at the time, I probably would've just continued to order the goat cheese appetizer, haha.

Community Q BBQ

1361 Clairmont Road

Decatur, GA

404.633.2080

The Little Cake Bakery

3792 Roswell Road

Atlanta, GA 30342

404.841.8856

Ecco

40 7th Street NE

Atlanta, GA 30308

404.347.9555

Vermont Brownie Company - Chevre Brownie

Before heading to Atlanta, I decided to use my 1/2-price coupon for an order of the brownie sampler pack from the Vermont Brownie Company, so that we could all try these out.  If the name sounds familiar to you, it may be from their numerous appearances on food-related shows and blogs.  Most notably, their chevre brownie went up against Bobby Flay on an episode of "Throwdown!". 

I really liked the packaging on these brownies- what can I say, I'm a sucker for cute things, haha.

The half dozen sampler pack consists of the following brownies: Signature, Dark Chocolate Chevre, Espresso Dulce de Leche, Peanut Butter, Maple Toffee Crunch, and Walnut Chunk.

We tried out the Dark Chocolate Chevre first since that is their most known brownie.  At first, it tasted just like a regular chocolate brownie.  But then, another bite led to a full on punch of goat cheese, haha.  I think the rich dark chocolate flavor lends itself well to the strong goat cheese flavor- if this had been a lighter, milk chocolate brownie, it would've been completely overshadowed by the goat cheese.  Unfortunately D is not a fan of goat cheese but we tricked him into trying it- and he still hates it, haha.  I think that overall if you're a fan of goat cheese, this is a great, interesting type of brownie for you.  If not, the flavor is pretty strong, so be forewarned :o) 

ATL Visit - Grindhouse Killer Burgers

A trip to Atlanta wouldn't be complete without trying 29374923742938749823743 places for food, haha!  This visit to see A and D was no exception- we tried out a bunch of places alllllllll weekend.

We got things started with a late dinner at Grindhouse Killer Burgers (Piedmont location), after they picked me up from the airport. 

After a bit of confusion about the availability of sliders (which was our original order), we wound up getting the following:

Here we have the single Apache Style burger: pepper jack cheese, grilled onions, roasted new mexico green chiles.  Alongside the burger is an order of fried pickle chips. 
 
 

And over on this tray, from left to right: Vidalia onion rings, Grindhouse beef chili, and the Dixie Style burger: fried green tomato, pimento cheese, Carolina cole slaw. 

Both burgers were great, but the clear favorite was the Dixie Style - I loved the cole slaw especially, and the layering of flavors was spot-on.  I also enjoyed the fried pickles, obviously, cus hello, they are pickles. Fried. Haha!

What a great way to start off a fun weekend- this place was delicious!

Grindhouse Killer Burgers

1842 Piedmont Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30324
404.254.2273

Lunchtime Links for June 15th, 2011

• Serious Eats: Grindhouse Killer Burgers in Atlanta.
• Martha Stewart Living: Cute beach totes. 
• Paper Source: Summer cup covers.
• Midtown Lunch: Downtown NYC's Shake Shack. 
• The Family Kitchen: S'mores cupcakes.

Lunchtime Links for April 8th, 2011

• Jersey Shore: Recap from TVGasm.
• Serious Eats: Burgers at the Vortex in Atlanta.
• Envie: Southern-style tea party.
• The Kitchn: DIY strawberry milk.
• Washingtonian: An early look at Toki Underground.

Lunchtime Links for March 28th, 2011

• Serious Eats: Yeah! Burger in Atlanta.
• The Budget Babe: Trench coat roundup. 
• The Kitchn: Pasta with cauliflower, sausage, and bread crumbs.
• Bethenny Ever After: Recap from TVGasm. 
• Michael Ruhlman: Behind the scenes at Bouchon Bakery.

Lunchtime Links for March 11th, 2011

• Bethenny Ever After: Recap from TVGasm.
• Serious Eats: Best fried chicken in America.
• The Pioneer Woman: Short ribs in tomato sauce.
• Blondie & Brownie: Late Night Snack ice cream.
• Top Chef All-Stars: Recap from The Kitchn.

Lunchtime Links for February 4th, 2011

• Serious Eats: Takahachi bakery in NYC.
• Real Housewives of Atlanta: Recap from TVGasm.
• Big Girls Small Kitchen: Pad Thai recipe.
• The Kitchn: Chocolate covered treats using candy molds.
• Amateur Gourmet: Best biscuits in Atlanta.

ATL Wedding Weekend Treats!

Of course I couldn't go away for a weekend without telling you about the food.  We all had a great weekend in Atlanta for A & D's wedding!! 

On the night before the wedding, A & D were nice enough to include me in the rehearsal dinner, held at the Iberian Pig restaurant in Decatur, GA.  The meal was AWESOME- course after course of tasty tapas and other shared plates - SO much food!  I would absolutely go back there again if I ever find myself nearby, haha.  Seriously, check out the online menu- I'm hungry again just from thinking of the dishes we had!  The food looked so good that I was way more focused on eating it all vs. taking photos, haha.  However, I did manage to photograph one of the desserts, which was churros (the photo was taken after a few were already snatched up, haha) with a thick chocolate dipping sauce, yum!

Being that it was A's wedding, of course there would be cupcakes :o)  Here's the cupcake tower at their wedding reception, complete with a giant cupcake cake on top!

 

Sadly, my attempt at being "good" and only sampling from the mini cupcakes resulted in me MISSING OUT on the three regular-size flavors, including the Red Velvet, d'oh!  I mistakenly thought that all of the regular-size cupcakes were the same as the minis, but I was sadly mistaken.  But these minis were super delicious: pumpkin, s'mores, and I think a banana nut?  I liked the pumpkin one the best but they were all delicious.  

Once again, I'd like to congratulate A & D - their wedding was great, they both looked fantastic, and the whole wedding was totally a reflection of their personalities and their love for each other- so, CONGRATS again you two!!!

Iberian Pig

121 Sycamore Street

Decatur, GA 30030

404.371.8800