Coldplaying with flavours
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A two-flavour, tub is around €11. The packaging is very swish, but it doesn't look like the greatest value serving on first sight.
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In Short
First Impressions?
I made an ice-cream shop
With all the flavours I do,
And I decorated it for you,
And it was all yellow.
USP? Eye-opening and sometimes award-winning flavours. Plus simulacra burgers and hotdogs.
The offer in three words. Gourmet, creative choices.
Service! Free tasters on offer.
Friend friendly? Vegan chocolate is one of the options.
Rating for dating. Well yes, obviously. It's uniquely creative ice-cream.
Change one thing? A shame it's not a cafe.
Revisitability. Essential.
What's the story?
Popota's regular flavours are summed up on their Fb page. Various visits, last summer and this month - in their new footfall friendly location - have seen us try a few flavours now.
Gofio 🏆 Instantly on the HR Recommended list, we first tried gofio as a frozen dessert in the Canaries and were on to a second helping within minutes, We confidently predict that, before long, Gofio ice cream will be everywhere. Like a sort-of toasted shortbread flavour, it manages to be sweet and bitter at the same time and combines with chocolate desserts so much better than vanilla, you have to try it. It's a brilliant, addictive flavour. Popota's interpretation is creamy (without the distinctive graininess, which can make it an acquired taste) and, for an ice cream, it's got a surprisingly intense identity.
Mago Merlin helped Popota to second place in the World ice cream awards in Italy in 2018 - their trophy's on display on the counter! For us, this flavour's not as special as the Gofio, but we can't fault it for quality. It's a serious gourmet product. Moreish, intensely creamy in texture (presumably thanks to the banana and mango amongst other tropical themed ingredients) when it's fresh from the servery. It recovers its consistency well, even after a week at -18 C in a ***(*)deep freeze, too.
Croissant is an admirable experiment that doesn't quite work for us. Simple test? Tried at a blind tasting could I name the signature ingredient? Nope. It's tasty, though and excellently textured, but the tiny flecks don't add enough to shout croissant! in the way the gofio is instantly unmistakable.
Popota is another unique flavour, this time with a signature ingredient in carob, an ingredient we'd never even heard of before and still aren't sure we'd know if we met it coming down the street wearing a purple poncho with "Look at me I'm a carob" stencilled on it. And that's even after googling it. At least the revised version of the duck test has a point;
So, it might be brown, creamyish and slightly bittersweet, but this has nothing to do with chocolate. Good news is that, despite being unquestionably different, it was no less pleasing to our resident cacao enthusiast. As a take-it-or-leave it chocolate dessert eater, I liked the fact it felt lighter than I might have expected.
Cereza Is it the cherry on the ice cream cake? Nearly, nearly Wallace Beery. It needs more bite and acidity. There's freshness and it's creamy rather than icy so is an ice cream not sorbet, but we want fruity intenseness. Like a voluptuous interrogator in a 1940s-set adventure movie. Or Jessica Rabbit presenting Mastermind. Look, we're still in you have to try it territory, but others are higher on the list.
Full of new things to try, with delicious versions of classic flavours, all made to the highest texture standards and served in an amiable - and very yellow - atmosphere, if there were Michelin*s for ice cream shops, Popota could be on the way to one.
