The Unvegan

Although this doesn’t quite fit into my typical unvegan reviews, I wouldn’t be a real LA food blogger if I didn’t talk about the Coolhaus ice cream sandwich truck at some point. Besides, if you think about it, ice cream is an animal product that vegans can’t have, so I really am sticking to my unvegan principles here.

While being an art connoisseur at the Culver City Art Walk, I happened to be walking down La Cienega when the Coolhaus truck pulled up to the sidewalk right next to me. I had heard this truck would be at the art walk, but I assumed wherever it would be, it would have far too long of a line for me to deal with. I felt pretty lucky that the truck essentially landed in my lap, so I decided to give it a try.

Even though only a few people had arrived before me, it took a good 7 minutes to get my order in. I was a little disappointed by the variety (no peanut butter cookies?!), so I ordered the ginger bread cookies with vanilla bean ice cream. When I ordered, I was offered an edible wrapper for an extra 50 cents, which I was told is simply rice paper. At $3.00 for the sandwich, I figure they probably could have just tacked on an extra 50 cents and included rice paper with each order with no one any the wiser. With the choice given to me, however, I declined the edible wrapping.

In a few minutes, my sandwich was ready. I was a little disappointed that it was neither the size nor the shape of a house. I got over this quickly, bit in and tasted the delicious ginger and vanilla combination. The unfortunate consequence of doing so was that I squeezed nearly half of the ice cream out of the other end of the cookie. It seemed that the ratio of hard cookie to soft ice cream was far off-balance and could have used some correcting. The flavors, on the other hand were just perfect. At one point I bit into a big chunk of actual ginger, which I love.

It was a perfectly refreshing treat for a warm summer afternoon, and if they improve their hardness ratio and make some peanut butter cookies, I’ll be happy to bite into Coolhaus again.