Backyard Destinations

It’s arguably easy to share travel stories and to discuss the desire to travel through writing, photographs and verbal dialogue.

But what about expressing those things in ice cream?

Turns out there’s a new artisan ice cream shop in Los Angeles that actually does that. At Wanderlust Creamery on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana, each of the flavors offered are inspired by wanderlust and the travels of Filipino business partners Adrienne Nicole Borlongan and JP Lopez. Each flavor is derived from the duo’s previous travels and destinations they’d like to venture to in the future.

One of its most popular flavors so far appears to be the fig leaf + pistachio. Some of my favorites are honey lavender with rose crystals, strawberry balsamic mascarpone, hojicha burnt honey and wanderlust vanilla X 4.

Thai tea is another flavor that can be found at the shop, but what sets it apart from others is that customers can choose to put boba balls around the sides, so it ends up being like a hybrid of ice cream and the beverage.

There are 14 flavors currently on the menu, and JP says the shop aims to offer a wide range of tastes that are accessible to everyone’s palettes.

Customers have the option to take ice cream in a cup, in a macaron or in one of the following waffle cones: green tea, ube, chocolate or brown butter vanilla.

In addition to the thought behind the concept and flavors, Wanderlust Creamery is working toward becoming a certified micro dairy plant so it has greater control over everything that goes into the ice cream. Adrienne says they don’t want to be subject to using a pre-made base, and the shop already has a pasteurization machine inside the building.

She says that while most people probably wouldn’t notice the difference between ice cream with a pre-made base and that that is pasteurized in-house, she notices that people are becoming more detailed-oriented and that people’s palettes are becoming more refined.

Other flavors at this Los Angeles artisan ice cream shop are: sticky rice and mango (a vegan, Filipino-inspired flavor); pretzel and rugbraou; sweet cream and coconut beurre noisette; earl grey; fresh mint, palo santo, and dark chocolate; smoky road; abuelita malted crunch; and Vietnamese coffee.

Since there aren’t a lot of artisan ice cream shops in LA compared to San Francisco, Wanderlust Creamery is definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area. And the concept really is neat, since you can get a taste of travel in each scoop 🙂

For more information on Wanderlust Creamery, click here.