Father's Day: Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe - Pt 3

In case you missed them:
Father's Day: Como Zoo - Pt 1
Father's Day: Picnic - Pt 2

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To finish off our most perfect Father's Day celebration, we headed over to Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe, which was featured on the show Throwdown with Bobby Flay on the Food Network.

When we arrived, there was some sort of event going on. So we moseyed on over to find out what.

Every year, the ice cream cafe hosts The People's Flavor Awards. Regular people, like you and like me, submit their flavor ideas. The cafe picks the top 4 in each of the categories (Mix-Ins, Fruit, Chocolate, So Local, Kids & Specialties) and hosts a taste-testing event where you get to try them all and vote on your favorites.

I was in! Until...

I saw the price of tickets... $14 per adult and $7 per kid. Whoa!

We decided to pass on the event & instead went inside to order 3 servings for under the price of 1 adult ticket!

Inside, it's a bit cramped. It's hard to look at all the flavors and get through to the end of the line, especially when you're 9 months pregnant!

They have a wide array of products for sale in their coolers, too. From these Izzy Pop's (shown above) to ice cream cupcakes & cakes, ice cream sandwiches, etc.

They have such a wide array of flavors, that they have to rotate them every day. So you never know what they'll be serving that day, unless you use their online Flavor Up tool - it lets you pick your favorites & it alerts you when they've added that flavor to their menu that day.

We decided to stick with our favorites...

DD calls this "my ice cream shop" because her name is Izzy. :) She asks quite frequently if we can go there, because they carry her favorite ice cream flavor: Bubble Gum. It's bubble gum ice cream with bubble gum pieces in it. She's still learning how to not swallow the gum pieces!

DH had the same as me (see below) but for his "Izzy" scoop he ordered Salted Caramel. It's caramel ice cream with sea salt. Yum!

What's an "Izzy" scoop? It's a tiny little scoop of ice cream that goes on top of your ordered ice cream!

I was soooo excited to see my favorite on their menu, because it's not always available! I ordered Chubby Bunny... cinnamon & nutmeg ice cream with cream cheese frosting swirls & walnut carrot cake pieces! O.M.G.!!!!!!!!!

I didn't order an "Izzy" scoop, so what you see on my ice cream is a malted milk ball. I gave mine to my DH.

I'd like to take just a minute and talk about how I was able to enjoy ice cream being gestational diabetic and usually avoiding all forms of sugar.

I had previously decided that I was going to have this ice cream the night before when we were looking at the flavors and I saw that they had Chubby Bunny. Chubby Bunny is my absolute favorite ice cream flavor at Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe. I haven't had it since last summer. In fact, I haven't had any ice cream in...gosh, I can't even remember. So, I decided I was going to go for it!

Here are the tips that I used, so I could enjoy my ice cream guilt-free!

• Only eat sugar when you really want something. (i.e. Chubby Bunny!)
• Don't eat it very often. (i.e. Can't remember last time)
• Eat a reasonable portion (i.e. I ordered a kiddie-size and x'd the cone & "Izzy" scoop)
• Count it towards your carbs (i.e. I had very little carbs at lunch)
• Enjoy.Every.Last.Bite. YUM!