The One Where Frank Eats A Bodega Classic In Ice Cream Form
ODDFELLOWS x BODEGA BOYS baconeggncheese ICE CREAM
(breakfast sandwich flavored ice cream)
TASTE: 3/5 | NOVELTY: 5/5 | TOTAL SCORE: 8/10
Pandemic 2020 meant budget tightening and a lot of home cooking. It also meant the occasional indulgence when the concept was too brilliant to ignore. So when I heard the always brilliant
Desus and Mero had teamed up with Oddfellows Ice Cream to create a series of
Bodega Boys-inspired ice creams, I knew they’d be taking some of my splurge cash.
Most of the collection, in my opinion, is pretty standard ice cream with some bodega candy counter mix-ins. Nothing too exciting. Until you hit the description for baconeggncheese: “A smoked cream ice cream with candied bacon, whipped cheese cream, and candied egg yolks.”
Yep – okay – please take my money.
I am a major fan of the bacon, egg, and cheese or BEC. Oddly, I’ve never actually ordered one at a bodega opting instead to make mine at home. The magic of the BEC is the combination of salty smoky bacon with melty American cheese and (if you do it right) a runny fried egg. It’s a study in morning decadence on a bun and the perfect cure for any hangover. It’s so iconic that it even featured as a plot element in a certain DC Universe movie.
Given Oddfellows’ track record for making brilliantly bizarre flavor combos, I had high hopes for this ice cream. After all, this is the company that made a Cuban sandwich ice cream for the premiere of Chef. Their chorizo caramel is still one of my Top Ten Ice Creams With Meat. While I wasn’t completely disappointed, I also wasn’t completely floored.
This is a smoky bacon heavy flavor ice cream, and that’s a fricking brilliant thing. Unfortunately, the “fried egg” flavor is very light bordering on vague. Sadly, there are little to no cheese notes. I will concede this is a “creeper.” The more you eat, the closer to the culinary thesis it gets. Perhaps if I had eaten a full pint in one sitting I would have gotten the full effect. However, for a couple of scoops in a bowl, the taste was more like when you’re sitting next to someone on a bus or subway who is eating a BEC. So, essentially, a secondhand BEC.