Today's short post is written by Cathy. It's just too hot to think much about food today. The mmm-yoyo!!! men, Kirk and Ed (from Yuma) will write about food when they are ready.
Another hot and humid day in San Diego and not much can keep you cool or relaxed. Unless, maybe you can find gelato! ('gelato' means 'frozen' in Italian)
EscoGelato has been in this small storefront for about three years now, serving up coffee, soup, salad, panini and gelato (as well as a few sorbet flavors), seven days a week. The husband and wife owners are proud to use the highest quality, locally sourced ingredients.
This is the view if you are walking South from Grand Avenue, where many nice restaurants are located. You'll probably notice the ice cream cone logo before you notice any signage. Here is a link to cc's 2013 post, which shows a front view of the store.
That is the entire menu. Because we had finished lunch elsewhere, we were only here 'for dessert'. I will write a post about the panini, soup and salads later.
What is gelato? Milk, cream and sugar, along with some fruits and/or nuts and/or other ingredients for flavors. Placed into a special machine which cooks, slow churns and then chills. The product is extruded from the machine into a pan and flash frozen. Gelato has less fat than regular ice cream, but it is higher in density than ice cream, so it's very creamy. All the flavors are made fresh daily at EscoGelato.
The final product looks like this. Many traditional and some interesting, imaginative flavors. As I mentioned: locally sourced, highest quality, made fresh daily.
Small ($3.50). Brown Butter Pecan gelato and Apricot Goat Cheese gelato. We asked for a sample first and each of these were refreshing. You can taste each flavor, and what great flavors these were! The buttery creamy gelato, crunchy pecans…fresh apricots and, yes, goat cheese, were wonderfully complimentary and great tasting.
Salted caramel gelato used for an affogato ($4.75) ( Affogato is Italian for 'drowned'). Because I know the coffee here comes from locally owned Zumbar and I had a craving for a good cup of coffee, the shot of espresso with this salted caramel gelato was a perfect combination of flavors. It looks like a small amount of coffee, but because it is so strong, using it sparingly (more like a sauce) was just the perfect amount of espresso with this rather large amount of gelato.
I hope everyone is staying cool!
EscoGelato 122 S. Kalmia Escondido 92025 (between West Grand and 2nd Ave) (760) 745-6500 Website Open Mon-Fri 8-9, Sat-Sun 10-9