Dessert | popbar

After a delicious taco dinner at Dos Toros Taqueria, we passed by popbar, a dessert shop that I've been meaning to visit. I had no idea it was right near Dos Toros in the West Village, so it was a nice surprise for dessert.


So popbar's specialty? It is handcrafted gelato on a stick (along with "popsicle bars" --thus the name "popbar," I gather -- made from other churned confections which include sorbet and yogurt) made from all natural ingredients. All of its popbars are Kosher certified, gluten-free, and preservative-free with no artificial coloring. All of its popSorbettos (i.e., sorbet on a stick) are lactose-free and vegan-friendly. Love the store's signage -- a popsicle stick! Sheer brilliance!


Look at that splendiferous display of multi-flavor and multicolored beauty -- wonderfully crafted bars of chilly perfection waiting for its beholders to salivate and to order to go. It was so hard to decide, which just ended with me selecting only one, promising myself I'd come back frequently to try the other flavors. What's even cooler is that popbar has a menu item called mypop for which you can create your own personal popbar starting with a basic popbar (flavored and plain). You then select your "poppings" (i.e., toppings, which includes an assortment of nuts, sprinkles, granola, and shredded coconut) and your "signature dip" (which includes dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate). The basic popbar will get dipped in the "signature dip" and covered in the selected "poppings," yielding numerous combinations of popbars to create!


With too many decisions to make, I decided to keep it simple that night and went with the Pistachio Premium, a popGelato covered with freshly chopped pistachios and half-dipped with signature dark chocolate. And it tasted exactly as it looked -- a blissful whirlwind of crunchiness from the shell of dark chocolate and the crushed pistachios. What I liked so much about this popbar is that the gelato stayed in tact (i.e., didn't melt away in seconds) and that the chocolate shell had a lovely thickness to it. So if you are looking for a new way to have your fixing of gelato, popbar is the place to go!

Findings: While the prices at popbar are a bit on the high end, I think the quality of the ingredients along with its well-crafted popsicle bars can arguably justify the price point. I like that there is a "create-your-own" option, making the menu very versatile to satisfy any palate at hand. What really got me was the total inundation of pistachio flavor that I experienced with the Pistachio Premium popGelato that I ordered. It was quite heavenly as the freshly chopped pistachios really brought out the flavors of the gelato and gave it a great overall crunch with the dark chocolate "popping" -- just delish!

I'm hoping to go back once more before the year's over -- perhaps to try a popSorbetto or be audacious enough to concoct an original "create-your-own" popbar.

Price point: $4.50 for each Premium popGelato.

--October 28, 2011

popbar
5 Carmine Street
New York, NY 10014
http://www.pop-bar.com