Hebden Bridge

Mr H and I accidently arrived in Hebden Bridge just as the while town was shutting down for the Handmade Parade.  It was spooky, the pavements were lined with people who stood staring as we drove through trying to find a parking space.  Not surprisingly, we struggled.

When we finally parked up, just as the band started to play “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Thank You Think)” the rain came down.  We were not off to a good start - the forecast had promised sun, we had not brought our coats, and had just had a nerve racking bike-carrier-brushing-the-road incident.

Thankfully, by the time we had rescued the bikes, the sun was back out! We proceeded to take this route – it was a really pleasant one with nice views (but a couple of difficult to nav bits).

We arrived back in Hebden Bridge at about 17:20.  This was worrying.  We did not have a specific ice cream shop we were heading for, we were just hoping to find one.  It was nearly closing time, we were relying on our instinct and it didn’t fail us.  At 17:25 we took a lucky left and found The Milk Bar, a 50s inspired establishment selling exciting looking milkshakes and ice cream.

  MCC chose Mint Choc Chip, Mr H had Pistachio.
  
I wasn’t very impressed with my ice cream, it wasn’t all that minty, and the choc chips were not exciting.  Both ice creams were also worrying (to me anyway) day-glo colours. Mine green (understandable), Mr H’s was Orange! Where did that come from??  Mr H enjoyed his ice cream and found it to be good quality, so maybe the Mint was just having a bad day.




On to the scores:

  I’m not sure the ice cream would tempt me back to The Milk Bar, but I would definitely like to try one of their milkshakes.

Beaumaris, Anglesey

Ice cream in Beaumaris means only one thing: The Red Boat.  Anglesey is one of my favourite  places to visit, and it has ranked even higher since The Red Boat opened a few years ago.

We were in the area for a long weekend, so we managed two visits to the ice cream parlour (obviously purely for quality control reasons).

On Friday 3rd June Mr H and I were well ready for ice cream. We had been to the Marin mountain bike trail at Betws y Coed (my first real red route, v exciting) on the Thursday, and we arrived at our campsite quite late that evening (Kingsbridge - not a budget site but really nice with good facilities).

We started slowly on Friday with a single scoop. Mr H had Creme Fraiche & Forest Berries flavour, MCC broke from the norm and chose Raspberry Ripple Royale. We both had flakes. The ice cream was, as usual, incredible. 

On Saturday we walked up to Penman point (didn't see any puffins though) and did some of the coastal footpath.  This earned us a double scoop.  The ice cream party today included our friend Schoolboy Wizard. SBW was very well behaved and only had a single scoop, New York Cheescake With Lime.  Mr H had a double, Chocolate Caramel + Jellybear.  Both flavours were great, I wasn't sure what I was expecting from Jellybear flavour but it definitely exceeded it!  MCC went for After Eight (an interesting take on choc mint!) + Spicy Apple & Cinnamon.  As I’m sure you’ll imagine, these two flavours didn't really compliment each other, but I wanted to try them both so I did!  They were of course both fantastic.

See below for scores, an average from all on the panel (both days).

The only thing spoiling a perfect score is the price.  Don't get me wrong, the price is very reasonable for a good ice cream in a tourist town, however, for the prices you pay you would expect a little bit more generosity.  Then again small portions are the perfect excuse to get a double!

Can't wait for the next visit to ice cream Mecca!