Ice cream/Pais
Feb 24th, 2003, 01:52 PM
#5
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I must agree that it is not the best. And the prices keep going up and up while the portions get smaller and smaller. Last summer I tried it several times -- a double "taste" for about $5 as I recall. The sorbets are good -- pure fruit, but I had pistachio that tasted like soap, and a chocolate that was simply mediocre.
Feb 24th, 2003, 04:52 PM
#6
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I tasted Berthillon's ice cream because Lonely Planet highly recommended it. I stood on a line for 20 minutes and for the price you pay first of all you get a miserable amount of ice cream, and secondly they are not as good as I had expected. Much better the italian hand made ice cream. If someone has ever tasted the real and traditional (we call it "artigianale") italian ice cream (there is one near Campo dei Fiori in Rome or one called Giolitti near the Parliament where they make absolutely delicious ice cream) will agree with me. My second try in Paris was Hagen Dasz on Rue de Rivoli: much better than Berthillon's!
Feb 24th, 2003, 05:20 PM
#7
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Hagen Daz?? Maybe if you said a homemade sorbet in a small cafe in Montmarte but Hagen Daz?
I guess in this instance, it is all a matter of taste. We were staying on the Ille St-Louis, Berthillon is at the end of the street our hotel was on. It was a bright spring day, there was no line, I had chocolate and my husband had some fruit flavor and we both thought it was the Best!
Probably if I ever manage to get to Florence Italy, I will have a gelato and from then on I will tell everyone that it was the Best Gelato!
Feb 24th, 2003, 05:22 PM
#8
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I agree, Berthillon is not the greatest ice cream (I only had chocolate but it tasted like the cheapest you'd buy in the grocery store). Once you've had Italian gelato, nothing will compare. For a really great New York Sundae (a fancy hot fudge sundae) try the Cafe de le Depart at Place Ste Michel right at the Seine. Besides it's great people-watching. And, there is a Hagen-Daz on, I believe, rue de la Huchette very close by.
Feb 25th, 2003, 05:35 AM
#10
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Like some others, I only like the fruits sorbets from Berthillon.
Usually, I stay away from ice creams in Paris and prefer to hit the patisseries for pastries, like lemon tarts which you hardly get outside France.
Feb 25th, 2003, 05:54 AM
#11
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There's a lovely Italian ice-cream place on rue Mouffetard in the 5th, where they use special palette knives to shape your cornet into a flower (one flavour in middle, the other forming the "petals" round the edge). The ice-cream is yummy too!!
Feb 25th, 2003, 06:14 AM
#12
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Well, of course there are many people who shutter at the thought of anything that isn't quaint and charming, so I hesitate to agree with Battufolino above, but frankly the Hagen Daz on St. Germain had far superior ice cream. It's sort of like the idea of McDonald's fries. I don't go to McDonald's normally, but I swear that if you went to any great brasserie in Paris and did a switch of McDonald's fries for theirs, most people would sit there and rave about how great the frites were -- but would shutter at the thought of eating McDonald's fries "knowing" how terrible they must be. Same with the ice cream. While Hagen Daaz may be big chain, there is a reason their ice cream is so popular -- it is delicious. I'd take it over Berthillon's anyday!!! Just get some and pretend you got it from some offbeat out of the way place and you'd love it. Or get somebody to go get some in a plain cup and tell you it was from a little house where the lady makes her own daily. That will make all the difference.
