Finally got the chance to try Scoop Station… However, on sharing the experience, a friend of mine kept insisting that its not a good option and hence tried a couple more times to be sure and thought of making a combined review… Personally I felt that that my friend was being unreasonable and I for one really did enjoy the ice cream options I had and hence I would urge you the reader to come to your own conclusions… 🙂
Scoop Station is a tiny place right next to and run by the good folks at Madras Tiffin Center in Kowdiar, Trivandrum… I think this might be the first ever Ice Cream place that has a cold stone/ice pan which they use for mixing ice cream with various condiments like, jello, fruits, toffees, even pastries/brownies, even products of other brands like Cadbury’s Gems, Perk, etc… Essentially what you get is a mashed or rather blended sundaes… The use of the cold stone makes sure that the ice cream doesn’t melt away in the process… When I heard about the place, the first thing that came to my mind was Ice Cream Rolls… However, they are not doing them here… And from what I saw, they don’t have a big enough ice pan to do it… So, instead of making the ice cream on the spot, they are basically using pre-made ice cream and then mixing them with the condiments on the pan and serving to you in a waffle cup… Anyways, I went there for a total of 3 times so far and had one item from their menu during each visit… They are in order a Choc-o-Shock-o, a Fruit Shot and a Nutant Gene…
So, the Choc-o-Shock-o as mentioned in their menu consists of a couple of scoops of rich chocolate ice cream mixed with a piece of chocolate pastry(brownie), chocolate chips, chocolate wafer sticks and hot chocolate fudge served in the waffle cup topped with some extra chocolate chips, a drizzle of hot chocolate fudge and a piece of chocolate wafer stick…
The result came as shown in the pic above… Each teaspoon pretty much did let me taste the ice cream along with all of the condiments ie, the richness of the brownies, crunchiness of the wafer sticks and of-course the taste of the fudge and chocolate chips… I am not sure about which ice cream they are using, but altogether a sinful chocolatey treat indeed with the rich chocolate flavour of the ice cream… 🙂
During the next visit, I decided to go via the non-chocolate route and hence chose the “Fruit Shot”… This consists of a scoop each of Vanilla and Strawberry ice creams mixed with pieces of apple, pineapple, kiwi and litchie and then served in a waffle cup topped with some strawberry syrup and a strawberry wafer stick…
The result came as shown in the pic… Essentially it felt like a blended fruit salad with ice cream… Each teaspoon of it gave a incredibly flavourful fruity taste to it with the combined flavours of the fruits put into it… However, unfortunately this time, as can be clearly seen from the pic, the ice cream ended up melting a bit… Not sure why as the ice pan is supposed to prevent that from happening… Anyways, loved every bit of it nevertheless… Only problem in terms of taste was that I personally did not like the taste of the filling inside the strawberry wafer stick as it really felt synthetic and more of a tonicy kind of feel to it… (ever experienced what happens when you put in too much of the essence/extract drops when you cook? thats how it felt)…
Then on my third visit, since the chocolate experience felt better than the non-chocolate route, I went back to the menu and found on that peaked my interest one called “Nutant Gene”… This as per their menu consists of a scoop each of vanilla and chocolate ice cream mixed with some roasted almonds, chocolate pastry and crushed waffles served in a waffle cup topped with some more roasted almonds, crushed waffles, some Cadbury’s gems, a drizzle of hot fudge and a chocolate wafer stick…
The end result came as shown in the pic… I guess the lighter color is because rather than two chocolate ice cream scoops, one of them was of vanilla… In this one, I felt that you need to have healthy teeth to eat this cause, those roasted almonds and the gems felt incredibly tough to chew into… Other than that, the ice cream was incredibly creamy with a rich vanilla and chocolate component along with the smokey flavour of the roasted almond in it… The texture of the brownie was felt just like the choc-o-shock-o but the intensity of the chocolate is a lot lesser compared to it, due to the presence of the vanilla ice cream… The wafer stick was the same as the one from my first visit…
So, altogether unlike what my friend said, the place feels promising… Having your ice cream prepared on the pan with the condiments of your choice should be a great fun experience for the kids and hence I believe this is the place where you should take your kids for ice cream… I for one will be going back there soon to try more of the options available…
