A real pumpkin! Half a coconut! A slice of apple pie! A cup of coffee beans! Real Cinnamon Toast Crunch!
No fake fruit here, folks. This is some serious commitment.
We tasted a few flavors (yes, the Cinnamon Toast Crunch tasted exactly like the cereal, yes it reminded me of Saturday mornings circa 1990, and no we did not get a whole cup of it) and settled on 6 flavors between the two of us to cram into our cups.
Each cup looked small, but the friendly Bon Bon employee packed those puppies with so much gelato that neither of us finished our servings. (Dinner was totally ruined, obviously). kDay chose chocolate peanut butter (with real Reese's Pieces, shown above in the upper left hand corner), coconut, and fudge brownie (lower left hand corner). I chose mint straciatella (upper center), vanilla (lower right), and chocolate (upper right).
We retreated to a very retro sitting area to eat our gelato. It had twirly bar stools made of red, glittery plastic that I would have liked a lot in 1990 (and, let's be honest, really liked on Tuesday). Once we sat down, we realized we were in crazy town.
Why hello, seventeen thousand Sesame Street stuffed animals and all the colored M&Ms you could ever want. It's nice to meet you.
Even though the decor was pretty strange (see below), the gelato was surprisingly delicious. kDay's fudge brownie was the clear loser of the day, only because the gelato was not so fudgy. Despite the pieces of real brownie, it wasn't a properly chocolatey experience to justify such a chocolatey name. The chocolate peanut butter was everything kDay had hoped it would be, in addition to having Reese's Pieces in it (no, we're not gelato purists). In kDay's cup, however, the come-from-behind winner was the coconut. It had the texture that Angelato's educational materials raved about and just the right amount of coconut mixed in.
The vanilla was shockingly yellow, which was a little suspicious but it tasted delicious. Strong vanilla flavor and a great texture give Bon Bon's vanilla the edge over Gigi's vanilla for me, although kDay is resolutely still giving Gigi the win. The chocolate should have been called cocoa - it tasted just like cocoa powder with sugar (delicious but unexpected) and I spent some time puzzling over whether I liked it. I've decided that chocolate gelato comes in three types - the Piattini type (death by gooey fudge), the Standard type (exemplified by Rita's and tasting like chocolate ice cream), and the Bon Bon type (darker, cocoa flavored). I have decided that I can take or leave the standard type but really like the more unique chocolatey flavors. kDay seemed to dislike the cocoa flavor which meant more for me. The last flavor in my cup, the mint straciatella, was perfectly executed. Not too much mint and lots of crunchy chocolate bits made it really tasty and unique - every other straciatella we've seen has had a white/vanilla base.
I just have to come back to the decor though. Big Bird, meet your new neighbor, the hooded skull-in-a-dome. You better lean away so that he can't eat you. Just lie right down on that bear. Push Elmo into the corner. Look natural though, Big Bird. LOOK NATURAL.
Despite the wacky decor, I was pleasantly surprised. Who would have known that some of the best gelato in the city was in a Sesame Street themed acid trip of a store across from the home of Christian Science? Who knew that there was a place you could sit on sparkly stools as a grownup? Who knew they were still making Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
This place definitely gets a big thumbs up from us. It's right off of the Hynes Convention Center T stop, so you don't have to go all the way into the North End. And they've got a pretty sweet view!
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