Location: 283 Rushton Road, Toronto
Website: http://www.bar-ape.com/

You wouldn’t be blamed for getting kinda bored of gelato in Toronto.  You seemingly can’t walk more than a few blocks without coming across a gelato shop in the city.  A lot of it is quite good, but after a while, it all starts to feel samey.

Enter: Bar Ape, which mixes things up by selling their gelato in soft serve form.  Of course, this means that they can only serve two flavours at a time (though chocolate-covered gelato bars are available in a variety of combinations), but it’s a worthwhile trade-off for something that’s so delightfully unique.

On this particular visit the two flavours were chocolate sorbet and fresh mint.  I got the twist, which comes with both.

Sorbet is generally made without dairy, so I was concerned that it would be icy or thin, but it was rich and creamy, with a really nice dark chocolate flavour.

The fresh mint was even better; unlike 99 percent of mint ice creams, which are made with mint flavouring, this was clearly made with actual fresh mint leaves.  This gave it an interesting herby flavour that really made it stand out.  The combination between it and the chocolate was a home run.

The only real downside?  The wooden spoons.  They’re becoming more and more common in the city, and I feel bad for criticizing them — they’re obviously more environmentally-friendly than plastic — but the rough texture and mild woody flavour makes them an off-putting implement for eating ice cream.  Plastic (or metal) or GTFO.