Europe and Asia might be thousands of miles away from our little city of Orange, but that doesn’t mean we can’t experience the mouth-watering flavors of these continents’ ice cream. The Panther broke down the top local creameries where you can get your fill of ice cream from around the world, just a short car ride away.

Pandor Artisan Bakery and Café

106 N Glassell St, Orange, CA 92866

Pandor is a French artisanal bakery and café reminiscent of one you would wander into in Paris as you're making your way to the Eiffel Tower. Inside, you’ll find the decor of white checkered wooden chairs and wooden tables along with glass chandeliers.

Not only does it have scrumptious buttery pastries and rich french coffee, but their gelato will transport you to Italy as well; it’s like two cultural experiences in one. The eatery boasts classic gelato flavors such as pistachio and stracciatella as well as the basics, such as strawberry and chocolate.

The cheese and fig gelato is probably the most unique flavor offered, and you’ll feel like you're having a charcuterie board picnic in a Parisian park. Luckily, the “cheese” component of it is actually more of a sweet cream flavor than a strong salty flavor. The fig skin gives the ice cream a bitterness that adds dimension to it, while the actual fruit is pureed and adds a caramelized stickiness to the little crunchy seeds on top.

Although this flavor was a bit softer than others, it was worth all the sticky fingers. It wasn’t too sweet and its heavenly taste acted as the perfect emotional pick-me-up. If cheese and fig are not your thing, pistachio is probably your second best choice.

The cup the ice cream comes in is spot on to what you would be holding as you stroll down the cobblestone streets of France or Italy. The spoon is even reminiscent of European ice cream spoons with a squared bowl and rounded handle. You can get one to three scoops of their gelato in a cup, or you can go for a pint, so you can take it home and watch your favorite French or Italian film while you chow down.

*Joe’s Italian Ice: The mango peach ice and vanilla soft serve from Joe’s Italian Ice are good on their own, but mix them together, and you’ll be in ice cream heaven.*

Joe’s Italian Ice - Anaheim, CA

2201 S Harbor Blvd, Anaheim, CA 92802

Staying with the Italian theme, Joe’s Italian Ice will serve you a much different take on Italian ice cream. In fact, it’s more of a Philly-style ice cream with Italian roots. The venue has a seemingly laid-back vibe from the exterior, as customers simply walk up to a stand to order their ice cream.

However, by just taking a step inside, you’re instantly transported to a retro 60s themed seating area equipped with red top seats and adorned with vintage bikes on the walls. And of course, what a better way to harken back to the era of the Jitterbug than with a jukebox?

Joe’s is famous for its vanilla soft serve and flavored ice combos called Joe Latti’s. They layer soft serve on the bottom and top off the cup with ice in between so you get a good spoonful with each bite. With about 20 different flavors, the ice component consists of finely ground ice mixed with flavoring to create a thick and creamy texture, despite it only consisting of ice and no cream.

The peach mango flavoring for the ice was refreshing — not too sweet, but it had a slightly medicinal flavor. The vanilla soft serve was by far the best part of this dessert, as it had more of a vanilla bean flavor to it which made it taste gourmet. Surely this would have been a five-paw ice cream experience if a different ice flavor was involved. Perhaps the plain mango tango would prove to be a better choice.

SomiSomi

305 N Harbor Blvd #107, Fullerton, CA 92832

Fish and ice cream are often not mentioned in the same sentence; however, SomiSomi is a whole other story. It serves a thick soft-serve ice cream in a fish-shaped soft waffle with a filling of your choice. This traditional Japanese dessert will make you feel so “kawaii” with its aesthetic presentation. From now on, fish-shaped waffles should always accompany thick soft serve — that's non-negotiable for me.

SomiSomi has a variety of uniquely Japanese flavors from ube and sesame, to milk tea and many more. You can get one flavor or a swirl with two flavors — the combinations of which are switched up every week. The cookies and cream swirled with the sesame flavor mix an American classic with a Japanese classic; it somehow was the perfect balance of cross-cultural flavors. It was not too sweet and the flavors of each really came through in a non-artificial way.

The soft serve is thick and doesn’t melt quickly at all, allowing for you to eat down through the waffle without it being soggy by the last bite. The fish-shaped waffles have a vanilla taste to them, but again, are not too overpowering. The filling you choose to put in them is what sets the tone for your waffle eating experience. Try it with the red bean paste to get a subtly sweet and gooey surprise at the end of your waffle.

Cauldron Ice Cream

1421 W MacArthur Blvd F, Santa Ana, CA 92704

Although Halloween is just behind us, Cauldron is mixing up ice cream all year round. Cauldron takes liquid ice cream bases and puts them in a mixer with liquid nitrogen to turn the liquid bases into a solid ice cream mixture. They are famous for serving their ice cream in Hong Kong-style bubble waffles they call “puffles.” However, they stop selling puffles after 9:30 p.m., so make sure to get there before then if you want to enjoy biting into the light and airy, yet crunchy, bubbles while eating your ice cream.

Their ice cream is absolutely addicting due to the unique flavor punches. The ice cream isn't too sweet, and the flavor speaks for itself so you can easily just keep eating and eating it. They have flavors such as banana milk and earl grey lavender, which ensure you will always find something new and exciting for your taste buds.

The banana milk did not come with any preset toppings, yet it was still so comforting and scrumptious. Banana is often an overlooked flavor for ice cream shops, but here it is treated as the main character. It isn’t artificial tasting at all and tastes like bananas were blended up with milk and sugar and served with love. Curious George would hands-down approve.

Okbingsul

6970 Beach Blvd, Buena Park, CA 90621

Mentally transport yourself to Korea via the taste of Okbingsul, a Korean shaved ice dessert. Your teeth will sink into a chunk of shaved ice that is enveloped by sweet milk. You can have a variety of different toppings on the shaved ice such as red beans or matcha. If you go with the red bean option, you will have whole red beans mixed into the sweet red bean paste which sits both on top and in the middle of the shaved ice to diversify the textures of the desert.

Additionally, the shaved ice is topped with fine red bean powder which takes the red bean theme to the next level, until it clumps up after you start eating — then, it’s much less pleasant. There are also little mochi balls on top which add a chewy texture to the mix and might be the highlight of the dish. They aren't too chewy to the point where you can’t bite through them, but they are just chewy enough to be fun and different.

Unfortunately, the ice does melt very fast, and you're left with watery milk accompanied by ice chunks halfway through, so that does damper the experience a bit.

Afters Ice Cream

117 N Glassell St, Orange, CA 92866

If you want to stay closer to home, Afters is heaven for traditional American ice cream with nontraditional flavors and a personal favorite for many Chapman students.

The ice cream parlor has flavors such as frozen hot chocolate, which might be an oxymoron, but it really does taste like someone took a hot chocolate and froze it, so the English language must forgive it. It also offers jasmine milk tea and Thai tea flavors, which are both great options for tea lovers who want something a bit more than the traditional cuppa with milk and sugar.

Afters also has flavors for absolute sugar addicts such as “sugar cookie,” which features cookie crumbles and sprinkles, and “cookie monster,” a blue-colored vanilla ice cream — in tribute of the famous Sesame Street

character of the same name —with fudge and cookie crumbles. Unfortunately, most of the shop’s flavors are sometimes sickeningly sweet, so be prepared to tap out after a couple of bites.

You can get your ice cream in a cup consisting of one to two generous scoops, or get a whole quart or pint to-go for movie nights.

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