Are you looking for the Best ice cream in Costa Rica
Here in Costa Rica, it is hot; LIKE REALLY HOT. So every now and then, it's nice to treat yourself to a cold snack of the Best Ice cream Around.
What makes it the BEST Costa Rica Ice cream Around?
My friend Ashley and I personally eat ice cream almost every day. So with such ice cream consumption, we would obviously want to make sure that we're getting the best possible. We took the extra step to try out as many ice cream shops as we could find and rate them on a scale we made to find out what we think is the best one. When rating them we did it on a basic 1-10 scale. 1 being bad and 10 being best.
The categories were: flavor, cone, environment, and service. Price was going to be in the mix, but you can get ice cream for less than two dollars or one thousand colones at every shop so it felt unnecessary to add pricing.
Defining The Costa Rica Area
The shops we had looked into stretch from the end of Tamarindo all the way to the beginning of Hucas. The shops we went to were Cosechas, Enjoy and soul frozen yogurt. These four shops were the only ones we could find that served either ice cream or milkshakes. This list does not include smoothies or any other frozen treats you may be able to find. You can also get ice cream at grocery stores but we did not have the money or time to try all their flavors.
Costa Rica Cosechas
Let us start our list off with the first shop we went to. This is a small little store that you can find in Villa Real in the parking lot next to Super Compro. This shop is called Cosechas and was where the hunt began for the best ice cream, but surprisingly was the worst on the list. Although it was the worst, it was not horrible by any means.
They scored a 4 on flavor, a 4 on the cone, an 8 on the environment and a 9 on service. In this shop, you will find clean tile floors freshly painted walls along with a small area away from the shake and smoothie counter that has a few tubs of ice cream with different flavors to pick from. Overall not bad but not as good as others in Costa Rica. This place is somewhere I would hit if I just so happen to be at the grocery store and wanted a tasty treat for the way home, but I would not make the journey out there just for the ice cream.
Costa Rica Soul
The next place on the adventure to find the best ice cream is called Soul. This frozen yogurt/ice cream shop can be found right in the middle of Tamarindo. To be more direct it's inside the little shopping area right next to the bank. Soul is mostly known for there frozen yogurt but also sells ice cream. This place was given an 8.5 for flavor, a 7 for a cone, an 8 for the environment and a 10 for service.
Inside this shop, you will find a wide selection of desserts such as their Candy Bar Sundays. Their environment is very friendly and clean. (I keep saying clean for these shops because that can be a big hit or miss in this country.) Now as I said before this place is known more for frozen yogurt so before ending my review on them I feel like its only fair to say they have GREAT frozen yogurt too. I highly recommend coming to this place if you are staying in town.
Costa RIca Enjoy
The final place on our tour is my personal favorite, this shop is called Enjoy. Now at enjoy they technically sell gelato but I feel like its close enough to ice cream in order to be on this list especially for the taste. You can find Enjoy right across the street at the intersection to Hucas. This shop is very nice and clean in there you will find another wide verity of treats and one of the largest verity of ice cream flavors I have ever seen in this country. This place is also very clean and is always playing some great tunes. Oh and I almost forgot they have a SUPER CUTE DOG.
Some may say there shouldn’t be a dog in a place serving food because it’s a health risk yada yada yada. But this is Costa Rica there are dogs everywhere and this dog is amazing so deal with it! Anyways you probably want to hear about the ratings on the shop. This shop received a 9 in flavor, 8 in cone, 8 in environment and 10 in service.
So in the first rating of Cosechas, I had said that it's not something to drive out to in order to try. Well this is one that is worth the drive (I can say this with confidence because I have done it twice in the rain on a motorcycle and it was dang well worth it.) I also want to point out this is the first place where I was able to find mint chocolate chip so for my fellow MCC lovers out there give this place a visit.
The Hunt Is Over
So sadly due to this being Costa Rica, this completed the hunt to find the best ice cream. You can find other frozen treats such as milkshakes or smoothies all over but we wanted to keep this list strictly to ice cream, Why you ask? Cause any ice cream is good ice cream, that’s why we all love it! Especially in a place like Costa Rica where it is so hot. So while here I would definitely recommend getting a treat from one or all of these places…
Now for a small little insider secret for reading this till the end. As much as I say to get ice cream from these places if you are somehow to busy or just too lazy to go out to get ice cream you can go into almost any local food shop or gas station and find these things called Trits. These are a cookie and ice cream sandwich with chocolate in the middle that are absolutely amazing and cheap and most certainly are worth a try no matter what your taste is.
