SOFT PEAKS

There's a debate raging across Vancouver at the moment, brought on by the ongoing summer heat: soft-serve or hard-serve ice-cream? 

If you've never been to Soft Peaks in Gastown, you may not be fully equipped to answer this question. You might think that soft-serve is something sold out of a machine at fast-food establishments. Thanks to brothers Dan and Ken Kim, Vancouver can enjoy soft-serve as it should be. At Soft Peaks, the soft serve is made from local Avalon organic milk, organic cream, organic milk powder, and organic stabilizers or emulsifiers. They also use dextrose instead of genetically modified sugar, such as high fructose corn syrup. This results in a "twist on milk" that generally is lower in fat than hard-serve ice cream, and often tastes creamier thanks to the air that is introduced at freezing. Add some amazing toppings, like local Okanagan and Fraser River honeycomb, and you have yourself a serious competitor to the traditional hard-serve ice cream.

We highly recommend their signature flavour, Honeycomb Peak, which is topped with a wedge of honeycomb. Alternatively, try to Mudslide - you can't go wrong with Tim Tam flakes and chocolate syrup.

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LA CASA GELATO

As you may have heard / experienced, Vancouver has been having a very hot and very dry summer, which isn't showing any signs of abating.

Will all this hot weather, Vancouverites have developed an affinity for ice cream. Thankfully, La Casa Gelato has us covered. With 518 flavours, it would take you nearly a year and a half to try all the flavours (even more if you have a double scoop - think of all the possible permutations!). That's right. It would take you 17 months of trying a different flavour every single day to get through each type. 

This gelato, sorbetto and frozen yogurt establishment originally opened on Commercial Drive in 1982 serving pizza, panarotti, panni and 12 flavours of gelato and sorbetto. It has since grown into the only gelato factory and store in the world that consistently has 218 flavours on location at all times. Choosing a flavour is half the experience (the other half is the décor, atmosphere, and that first lick). 

It's almost impossible to make a recommendation, as we've barely scratched the surface of the available flavours. Regardless of what you choose, we recommend you get it in a hand-made-in-house cone and eat it in the parkette across the street (easily identifiable by its vibrant pink walls). 

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