Bobby's Burger Palace: Vanilla Caramel Bourbon Milkshake

Bill


Burgers are the new tapas in DC, and at least this trend tends to bring milkshakes with it.  Unfortunately, Bobby's Burger Palace's Vanilla Caramel Bourbon milkshake comes nowhere near living up to the excitement about the restaurant overall. 

Instead of incorporating the caramel flavor evenly into the shake, some caramel ribbons swirl through the glass.  This caramel sauce can add intriguing texture and flavor to an ice-cream dish eaten with a spoon, but it's largely lost in a dish enjoyed through a thick straw.  This shake lacked the deep, indulgent vanilla flavor that should be expected in a vanilla shake.  The only traceable flavor was the bourbon.  The problem wasn't that the bourbon was so strong or voluminous that it overpowered the other flavors; it was that the other flavors were weak and didn't blend well.  This left the shake tasting like chilled bourbon and sugar rather than a milkshake.  Skip this dessert.


2121 K Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20037

(202) 974-6260

Google Map

Washington Post (Readers: 2/4)

Yelp (3/5)

Tripadvisor (4/5)

Firehook Bakery: Chocolate Espresso Cookie

Bill


When Firehook’s chocolate espresso cookie reaches its potential, it is almost one of our favorites. Its primary flavor elements are chocolate chips, espresso powder, and vanilla. That’s a great mix, but the final product is even better than the sum of its parts. The cookie looks like a chocolate version of molten rock: gooey rivers of chocolatey awesomeness run between mounds of soft cookie goodness with thin, flaky caps. It’s not quite a favorite because the walnut pieces, although small and few, break up the flow of the more flavorful elements, and there’s a consistency risk.

The consistency risk is that this cookie is sometimes hard and dry. When that happens, it would be a bad cookie at a grocery store, and something a specialty bakery like Firehook should be embarrassed to serve. That’s the version of the cookie I found in this review.  This cookie could approach the divine rating, but with the consistency risk, the best it deserves is great.


1909 Q St NW, Washington, DC 20009
(202) 588-9296

Google map & reviews

Washington Post (Editors' Pick)

Yelp (3/5)

Yahoo! (3.5/5)

Woodside Deli: Chocolate and Strawberry Milkshakes

Josh

There are two absolute facts in milkshake consumption, namely thickness and ice cream quality. Before anyone begins to question my expertise, I want to make clear that there can certainly be excess (sprinkles, fudge, brownie bits, etc) that obviously increase the delightfulness of this wonderful treat, but without the basics, excess, is simply that. The Woodside Deli has been a Silver Spring, MD, staple since 1947, and the décor screams it. One fun aspect of dining is, perusing the 1924 Cleveland Plain Dealer front page conveniently located in the men’s restroom. Obviously, a gender-restrictive luxury.

The deli itself is one of those awesome "we can make anything ever conceived" restaurants with a very extensive menu. The highlight for me was of course the Old Fashioned Thick Milkshakes. Only available in three flavors, chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla your options are limited, but a wise man once told me to stick to what you do best, and apparently that's what's going down here. A hard thing to really "screw up," milkshakes are not really an exotic or sexy dessert.  However, there's a balance with all successful cuisines and the Woodside’s milkshakes are the exact type of thick that allows both fluid movement through a straw and/or consumption with a spoon; quite distinguishable in fact from simply eating regular ice cream, a must in the frozen- milk trade. Therein lies the yin and yang of a great shake. The consistency is crucial and often taken for granted. Not here, not ever, and for that, I applaud and highly recommend a quick stopover. Grab a light sandwich and prepare yourself for a very filling dessert, one that comes with the blending cup on the side, the way our ancestors drank their shakes. The only way to really drink them!

9329 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20993

(301) 589-7055 

Google map & reviews (1.5/5)

Washingtonian 
Also, Todd Kliman recommended Woodside Deli’s chocolate milkshakes in a June 8, 2010 online chat:

One place I know that does chocolate malteds is The Woodside Deli, in Silver Spring. They're good. The food? Sometimes good, sometimes not so, but I like the shakes and I like the texture of the place, the old Vargas girls up on the wall in the back room, the black-and-white memorabilia.

Washington City Paper (3/5)

Metromix

Yelp (3.5/5)