It's been another beautiful weekend in Seattle so far! Yahoo! Forrest and I were in downtown Seattle on our bikes this afternoon; we'd heard that Lick Pure Cream, now in South Lake Union, formerly in Capitol Hill, was delicious, so we decided we'd stop by on our way home. Lick made it onto our list of must-tries a while ago, when we read about something we knew we had to try- an ice cream sandwich made with a donut. This mythic concoction sounded epically delicious (donuts?! ice cream?! together?!) but also seemed fraught with peril, so I was extremely curious to see one in the wild.
The owner of Lick, Michael (whose last name is ambiguous from the internet and may be either Darby or Avery- if anyone knows, leave me a comment) was working the shop the afternoon we dropped by and was really fun to talk to. He gave us the scoop, so to speak, on the origins of the flavors, and the development of the donut ice cream sandwich. Forrest and I each tried a couple of flavors; we tried the honey bacon, "se7en" (a Bailey's Irish cream containing concoction) and M2 (a secret flavor which Michael won't divulge the contents of to anyone- suffice it to say, it's delicious). Several of the day's flavors were already gone by the time we arrived, but the full selection was impressive, and we'll definitely be back to try more. The flavors were creative and extremely well executed. Although I didn't love the honey bacon, I thought it was nicely executed; the honey flavor of the ice cream was nice and not too sweet, and the bacon mostly added a textural element and a tiny hint of salt at the end of a bite. The ice cream is rich and smooth and all the flavors we tried were unconventional and interesting, but still delicious.
But, most important was the main event, the donut ice cream sandwich, known as a Lickwich. The Lickwich is an engineering marvel. Much thought has been put into the construction of the Lickwich; the donuts are made in house and have been formulated to be slightly heaver in consistency than a regular donut. They additionally lack holes (I was deeply concerned about the holes before I learned about this unconventional shape- how would the ice cream not drip?! were you committing to an ice cream bath by ordering one?!), allowing robust sandwich construction that allowed consumption of the entire sandwich without allowing even one tiny drop of melted ice cream to escape. When you order a Lickwich, the donuts are heated on a griddle for a few minutes to warm and crisp them, then a generous portion of ice cream scooped into them. The result is ice cream sandwich perfection; really, this is better than any ice cream combination I've ever had. Better than cones, better than cookies, possibly even better than brownies. The texture of the warm donut is the perfect complement to the ice cream; soft and easy to bite through, yet warm, slightly crispy and not too sweet. Seriously. It was amazing. Go get yourself a Lickwich.
Here's the scores:
Texture - 9
Flavors - 9
Donut (replacing the Cone category) - 9
Execution - 9
Taste - 8
Ambiance/service/etc - 8
52/60
In the event that you don't want an entire Lickwich (it is a bit of a commitment), I can wholeheartedly recommend just the ice cream, which was delicious on its own. Mora's may still be my favorite ice cream so far, but for establishments in Seattle proper, Lick is definitely my current favorite!
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