For years, my favorite ice cream shop in Las Vegas has been a little 50's themed shop called Nielsens Frozen Custard. Unfortunately, Nielsens shop was located in Henderson, on the southeastern side of the Las Vegas valley. I, on the hand, live in Summerlin, on the northwestern side of the valley. My favorite ice cream shop, thus, has always been located across town. Heck, it's technically in another town altogether. I would usually treat myself to a stop at Nielsens whenever I happened to be in or around Henderson, which has not been very often. I've long wanted Nielsen to open another location in Summerlin.
Well, today, that wish was granted. Nielsens had the grand opening of its second Las Vegas location today, in the food court of the Red Rock Resort on Charleston and 2-15. My favorite ice cream shop finally has a location on my side of town!
Apparently, I'm not the only one who loves Nielsens and has been eagerly awaiting the opening of a west-side location. The line stretched all the way across the Red Rock food court almost to the movie theater. It took 45 minutes to get through the line, and order my custard. I expected there to be a line, but I didn't expect it to be like a Disneyland ride line. Looks like lots of people were looking forward to eating some frozen custard, so hopefully this location will be very successful.
The line for Nielsens' Red Rock grand opening stretched across the entire food court.
While Nielsens does serve regular ice cream, its specialty (and my personal recommendation) is the frozen custard "concrete". It's a thick ice cream dessert served in a cup, but eaten with a spoon. Kind of like a Dairy Queen Blizzard or Wendy's Frosty, but better.
Frozen custard is a bit different than traditional ice cream. Custard contains egg yolks. This gives the frozen custard a thicker and creamier consistency than true soft serve ice cream, as well as being able to be produced in a manner that minimizes the amount of air and ice crystals that end up in the dessert. The egg yolks also increase the melting point of the frozen custard by a few degrees. This allows it to be stored and served at slightly warmer temperatures, and also means that it doesn't melt quite as quickly, especially if consumed indoors. Lastly, the slightly warmer serving temperature means that frozen custard may be a little bit less likely to trigger brain freeze when consumed. Though, actual results may vary.
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Tags:Nielsens Frozen Custard, ice cream, frozen custard, Las Vegas, Summerlin, Red Rock, Henderson, Dairy Queen, Wendy's, blizzard, frosty, Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers
Sunset on the beach at Carlsbad, California.
Time sure does whiz by when you're busy. This year, I have been unusually busy. You all know that I've been neck-deep in Civilization V for about a year now writing strategy guides. I've also had a lot of home maintenance and repairs come up (but there's always so much more to do). I've been working on a stressful project at work. And my social life has also been surprisingly busy.
I was also recently stung by a scorpion in my home. The little bastard crawled up my pant leg and got me 3 or 4 times on the shin and inner thigh before I was able to kill it. Scorpion stings are really painful! That was not a pleasant morning. But supposedly I took it "like a champ".
Little bastard stung my leg 3 or 4 times!
I ended up sitting with a pack of ice under my leg the entire day. If I removed the ice, my leg would instantly feel like it was being stabbed with flaming hot pokers. Fortunately, I had a pain reliever to help me sleep, and the pain was mostly gone by the following morning.
I do not recommend a scorpion sting, no matter how much you want an excuse to take a three-day-weekend!
At least now I know that I'm not allergic to the sting of the common desert scorpion!
Beach view from the hotel.
Anyway, I had some time off of work the following week for a vacation, and I feel that it was well-deserved.
The original plan was to go camping in Yosemite, but my girlfriend and I had to scrap that plan on account of the park being on fire.
So instead, we decided to take a relaxing trip to the California beach at her favorite vacation spot: Carlsbad, California. No, not the one in New Mexico with the cave; it's the one half an hour north of San Diego..
I've never been to Carlsbad before, and I'm not a huge fan of the beach in general, but it was a very pleasant place to spend a week. We had a nice room in a hotel just across the street from the beach. The weather was comfortable - in the high 70's with a breeze - which is a great relief from the heat of the desert!
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Tags:vacation, Carlsbad, California, San Diego, beach, sunset, nature, Sea World, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Pizza Port, Harbor Fish Cafe, Subzero ice cream & yogurt, ice cream, pizza, fish taco, fish and chips, scorpion
Opened up a brand new tub of vanilla ice cream today as a post-lunch snack, and found this very friendly-looking anomaly on the underside of the lid!
Ice cream always makes me smile. And today, it smiled back at me for a change.
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Tags:ice cream
Jimmy Fallon has his own flavor if ice cream?
Sorry Jimmy. I still don't like you. No amount of ice cream will ever make you funny or take away all those SNL skits that you ruined by looking at the camera and laughing while all the actors and comedians with TALENT continued the sketch without you.
You suck, Jimmy Fallon, and you always will!
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