Ice Cream Sunday fest at New Amsterdam Market in NYC

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to try over a dozen ice cream flavors!  There were 10 local artisans with an emphasis was on unique and seasonal ingredients.
http://www.newamsterdammarket.org/events.html

 My favorites were from Bent Spoon and Marlow & Sons for their unique/intense flavors and smooth texture. 

  

Bent Spoon next to Victory Garden which specializes in GOAT MILK Ice Cream in interesting flavors such as Lavender.

 

 Bent Spoon's  BEACH PLUM-NECTARINE is my #1 favorite flavor today...I had it 3 times!  It tasted like a perfectly sweet ripe plum (without the sour skin) and had a hint of nectarine. It was made from fruits that were just picked by the owner in New Jersey.  Very smooth texture too.

I also loved their yummy SWEET MARYY ice cream made of  "10+ kinds of organic heirloom tomatoes, organic celery, Pennsylvania vodka, homemade pepper powder, horseradish, organic worchestershire."

It was bursting of fresh tomato with just the right balance of the herb seasonings. 

CHOCOLATE with organic CIPOLLINI ONION was interesting -- it's like eating very good rich dark chocolate ice cream right after having onion rings.

BEET-GOAT CHEESE-LEMON BASIL was predominantly basil flavored with goat milk flavor. Couldn't taste the beets but it gave it a nice pink color. 

My other #1 favorite of the day is RED RASPBERRY PLUM from Marlow & Sons.  It wasn't because of the plum flavor which was subtle. It's fruity berry flavor is intense and fresh, texture is smooth and satisfying.

I couldn't decide between which flavors to try, so I had a mini-double scoop.  I liked the seasonal YELLOW PEACH and the CHOCOLATE...and the flavors also complemented each other nicely on the same cone.

KingLeche Cremes is an up and coming ice cream venture that debuted today.  The ROASTED PEACH was very fresh peachy flavor with hints of LAVENDER.  Had a very nice light texture.  In this picture is the entrepreneur Walter Youngblood.

Otto Enoteca Pizzeria's two ice creams were excellent:

VERBENA BLACK CURRANT SWIRL:  Verbena is a lemony herb (pictured here), and the black currant sauce has a tart flavor reminiscent of cranberry sauce. Nice smooth texture and not icy, but it melted fast.

SWEET CORN was one of the best corn ice creams I've ever had. While the corn flavor was less intense than Early Bird's corn ice cream, it had a more complex corn flavor embodying the ripest sweet corn in this tasty ice cream.

I liked Steve's Ice Cream.  The STRAWBERRY RICOTTA had dense smooth texture with a light strawberry flavor. It was creatively paired with a pickled strawberry. 

For BROOKLYN BLACKOUT (chocolate cake) ice cream, I prefer Little Cupcake Bakeshop's chocolatey version. I didn't try the rest of Steve's flavors because I'm looking forward to visiting Steve's new shop at Bryant Park to try their signature flavors.

Early Bird Cookery had several interesting flavors:

CORN & CARAMEL: The flavor was super-corny (in a delicious way), but I didn't notict the caramel.

BLUEBERRY LIME: refreshing fruity flavor...tastes as if one bought a scoop of berry ice cream and made a lemonade float of it.

BUTTERMILK & COOKIES: has rich ice cream with espresso-cookies swirled in.

HAY: The flavor was subtle, I was expecting an ice cream with more dramatic grass flavor.

La NewYorkina's PILONCILLO ice cream was disappointing.  The owner said this was a creamy ice cream (in contrast with their  sorbets).  However, it was actually more like the texture of a slushly (finely ground up ice) and not even the texture of a smooth sorbet.  Also, the flavor was so underwhelming that I wouldn't have known it was supposed to taste like brown sugar, donuts, &/or peaches

 I didn't know Blue Bottle Coffee made ice cream.  They sold out very quickly so I never got to try it, such as BLACK CHOCOLATE STOUT

VanLeeuwen has several trucks around the city so I didn't feel the need to try them today

I'm glad I went early, there ended up being huge crowds after 1pm.

Behind the scenes

The truck driver Jeff was in charge of guarding this freezer truck that holds all the back-up stash of ice cream.  The white cloud shows the cool air coming out