June 22, 2007
We All Scream!
Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream has returned! This small, Toronto-based artisinal ice cream joint that took our taste buds by storm several summers ago has always had trouble maintaining a venue. Last summer, it was operating out of The Back Alley (the restaurant, not an actual back alley) on Augusta. The summer before that, it was using the since-abandoned Sancis Fine Foods storefront on Kensington. Torontoist was dismayed a little while back when ice cream weather first came upon us for 2007 and we made a trip to the Back Alley jonesing for a scoop of rose ice cream only to be told that the organic ice cream had moved on. Oh, sure, we could always buy a small tub of the stuff from somewhere like Whole Foods if we really wanted (as if blogging paid well enough to enable grocery shopping at Whole Foods!) or down at the Dufferin Grove Park farmer's market on Thursdays, but it just isn't the same as having a regular organic ice creamery to frequent whenever we had a hankering for a scoop.
So imagine our delight when we heard that Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream had opened up a new location at Queen and Palmerston! Seriously, guys, this ice cream is phenomenal and tastes like real food, not like plastic chemical mysteries from Baskin Robbins. Flavours include Blueberry/Lavender and Emotional Rescue. When Torontoist went to check things out, they hadn't made our fav flav of last year yet: Strawberry/Black Pepper/Anise. Hopefully, it too will make a comeback.
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couldn't agree more. thanks for the heads up!
Lavender! Hurray! My favourite gelato place in Waterloo has lavender and honey gelato, but I don't make it there often enough. I'm going to try this place this weekend.
Carly - is that at Whole Lotta Gelato? If so, I have to try that the next time I'm there. Regardless, flower-flavoured gelato intrigues me. I wonder what snapdragon-flavoured would taste like.
You're speaking my language, y'all! Kensington has such sensual flavours: my favourites are a spicy chocolate (chile maybe?) and the aforementioned lavender. And vanilla-cardamon too. O! and vanilla-rose...
I did a poetry reading at Whole Lot-A Gelata once, and vote that all poetry readings be paired with ice-cream forevermore. Their coffee gelato was fabulous.
I assume the photo above was taken recently? This is the north-east corner of Queen St. W. and Palmerston Blvd, where Hero Burgers was the last time I checked.
I'm appalled. If you look closely you can see that they've plastered over the beautiful Social Fabric mural that's been a colourful part of that corner for the past two or three years.
What a shameful disregard for public art.
It looks like Roger is right. I'm not familiar with the mural, but there's something covered up, there. A perfunctory Flickr search on "hero burgers toronto" turns up a photo that verifies the location and gives a hint of what the mural looks like.
(I'd just link to the photo, but URLs are apparently verboten here without Yet Another On-Line Identity.)
That whole link removal thing is an anti-spam measure put in by Gothamist. If you want to show someone a website without having to create a TypeKey account, just enter it without the http://.
In KM Organic's defense, the mural hasn't been destroyed or anything, simply covered by removable signs. I'm not sure how permanent they intend them to be, but it is possible that they are just up now to promote the new location or are only meant to be up during the summer months when the place is open. I can't really imagine them surviving a Toronto winter.
Is it really necessary to paste over the entire mural on Palmerston? Especially when the storefront is on Queen?
There's not much foot traffic on Palmerston there anyway. It seems overkill. We get the point already. I'm sure the point would be much more appropriately made with a single sign on Palmerson.
Matt - It is indeed. They don't have the lavender and honey all the time, but when they do, it's amazing.
The Hero Burger is still at the same location. If you look towards the far left of the photo and notice the open doorway, that is where the new Kensington Organic Ice Cream location is. It's a bit deceiving. So technically they are on Palmerston and should be advertising off of Palmerston, although I do think covering up the mural so much was unnecessary.
You can also purchase their ice cream at the Fresh & Wild at King/Spadina as well as the Carrot.