Blue Bell Ice Cream

As a recent transplant to Texas, Blue Bell is more consistently good, and not that much pricier to me. Like, it's $5 or $6 for a big tub of it. HEB brand can be half that price, but the consistency is all over the place. We do like their pints though - Some are comparable to Ben & Jerry's in terms of quality, and that pretty much never goes on sale out here, vs. New England, where you'd see 4-for-$10 sales at times.

 

I love me some Blue Bell, but I'll never say no to a carton of some Mayfield cookie dough.

 

One manufacturer in eastern North Carolina - Coble - used to be sneaky good. Not a gourmet label, but consistency was top-notch and I've tasted enough bad ice cream since to appreciate Coble really was.

 

Quality necromancy. Picks right up after 14-plus years.

 

H-E-B is not the dominant grocery chain. You can only find H-E-B in Houston, San Antonio, Austin. Live in the DFW area, no H-E-Bs (except wayyyyy down south). Used to live out in the western part of the state, no H-E-B.

Blue Bell is available everywhere.

 

Tillamook wild mountain blackberry. Yum.

 

I said in "much of Texas," not all of Texas. In much of Texas, it is dominant. Maybe not in DFW, but elsewhere....it's everywhere.

 

I've never had Tillamook ice cream, but the sliced cheddar is fantastic (albeit incredibly expensive). I'll add Ben & Jerry's wild Maine blueberry, which used to only be available for maybe a month at the Maine shops.

I like to try local ice cream everywhere I go. Leopold's in Savannah may be the best I've had. I'm also partial to the old-school Chinatown Ice Cream Factory in NYC.

 

The Central Dairy creamery south of me is better than Blue Bell by orders of magnitude. Tillamook ice cream from the creamery is also very, very good.

 

Häagen-Dazs for me, always.

 

Ah, the creamery on campus. Will absorb cow college jokes for more of that ...