No Splitting This Split

I have been reinspired to blog again. Many days and months have passed (a year even?), and I guess it's unsurprising to those who know me, that the thing to bring me back to the blog is my one true love. Ice cream that is. To be more specific, my absolute favorite the ice cream treat, the banana split. oh, how I love the banana split. There are variations that are better than others, and I've never really been a big fan of the pineapple portion of the banana split, but tonight, I had the banana split that beats all banana splits. Not only did it beat every other banana split, it KILLED every other banana split. It was the home-run touchdown of banana splits.

So I've been traveling for work and have spent the last two weeks in Washington, DC. I've had work to do in the evenings so for the majority of the trip, I've spent my dinners in the hotel room eating falafel sandwiches or peanut butter. Some nights I got some black bean soup from the Dean and Deluca down the street, but it's not been much high class dining (with the exception of one other night). So, last weekend my mother-in-law tipped me off to Frank Bruni's latest top 10 list (top 10 new restaurants outside of NYC). Since I was out of NYC and one of the restaurants on Bruni's list was in DC, I decided to check it out.

I went after work and settled in at the bar with a nice glass of wine. My treat dinner, I thought to myself, it being my last night here and all. I glanced over the menu, but I had studied it dutifully online and knew I wanted to order the burger. With bacon and cheese of course. And seriously, I am not a big believer in the fancy [expensive] burgers, but since this was treat night for me, I went for it. I did a little web surfing and emailing and before I knew it my burger had arrived…about three inches thick and with a sufficient pile of french fries on the side. I immediately dug into the fries and they were salted perfectly and peppered too. FINALLY. I don’t know why restaurants don’t always salt and pepper the fries, they’re SO much better with both. I mean, doesn’t everyone love the salt and pepper potato chips? It’s like that, but better because they’re hot and wonderful. Anyway, I managed to get my mouth around the huge burger and in no time I was half through it. Tender, juicy, and just delicious. Totally worth the $20 I was paying for it.

But this is a blog about the banana split…so we’ll move quickly onto that portion of the meal. I did eat the entire burger and left three fry crunchies on the plate, and was feeling full, but since the burger was so good, I figured the banana split had to be good, and really, how could I not order it? I really didn’t have a choice in the matter, the decision was completely out of my hands. Before I knew it I was ordering it. It seemed that the banana split took at least twice as long to arrive as the burger did, but perhaps that’s because I was so looking forward to it. Despite my clear excitement for the split, I really didn’t think it was going to be so good. I mean, I figured it would be good, but I had no expectation that it would be the best banana split ever. And I’m serious, best ever.

So the banana split arrived and my eyes must have grown to the size of the ice cream scoops; it was served up on an old school tv dinner type plate (you know the one, with four divisions, three small portions and one big one). The banana was served up in the main part of the plate (don’t worry, now that Jeff made me get that fancy phone, I take pictures), and it was snuggled between a pool of chocolate and a pool of caramel (for the record, I don’t like caramel). The banana was sliced in half lengthwise and covered with the following:

1. whipped cream
2. strawberry and chocolate sauce (duh)
3. crispy chocolate bits
4. freeze dried pineapple (they FINALLY solved the gross pineapple problem)
5. and just a nice sprinkling of chopped pistachios

The three ice cream flavors were: chocolate, strawberry (sorbet though, more about this in a minute), and caramel. I started with the chocolate ice cream (traditional choice for me, obviously) a bit of chocolate ice cream and a bit of banana (with all the banana fixins’) on one spoon. What surprised me immediately was the creaminess of the ice cream, I swear that the ice cream was made only out of heavy cream and chocolate. The banana with all the nibbly bits provided just the right amount of crunch, sweet, sour (from the freeze dried pineapple), creamy and good good goodness. I immediately ate about 5 bites in a row without thinking…I had to try every combination, chocolate ice cream with the caramel sauce, caramel ice cream with the chocolate sauce and so on and so forth. And despite my strong dislike of caramel, I found it not so sweet and just right with the banana and the rest of the deliciousness. I usually hate caramel because it oozes with gooey sweetness, which to me, is the mark of a bad dessert, if you have to cover the flavor with gooey sweet then it is just not good. But both the caramel sauce and caramel ice cream were LOADED with cream, so it was not so sweet at all.

So we now come to the strawberry sorbet. I had avoided it….I was so terribly disappointed when I first realized it was sorbet (sorbet is for cleansing your palate it is NOT a dessert…do you hear me Jeff? not a dessert). So when the rest of the split was so good, I had to give the strawberry a try. I reluctantly put my spoon in but only put a mere dab on the end of the spoon and filled up the rest with the banana goodies. But I took a bite and realized, this may be what all good banana splits were missing, it was SO refreshing with the rest of the dense creamy split. It was like an even better strawberry sauce. and I didn’t have faith, even after all the good food I had eaten.

this was the point in the split in which I had take a huge breath and I realized that my stomach was about to explode. I hade made it through about half the chocolate scoop (each scoop was probably about 10 oz of ice cream), half the caramel and a third of the strawberry (I know! but the strawberry came to the party too late in the game for me to get through that much of it).

I had about two bites left of the banana (in addition to the ice cream), and I realized I could not go on (so unlike me, one of my friends has already commented). Despite it being my celebratory night, I was not going to make myself sick (I have only once made myself sick from eating too much….aah, pound cake….and I still love it), so I threw in the napkin. but by that time I had already convinced the woman sitting next to me that she too must order the banana split.

Perhaps the joy also came from the fact that it was 60 + degrees here today, so I had that spring feeling in my step. PLUS, when I was younger spring meant the DQ, and that was my first experience with the banana split. but I’d have to say that 99% of the goodness in today’s banana split was from the fantabulousness of it, and maybe 1% could be attributed to the nostalgia. Regardless, this means that spring is here, ice cream season is officially upon us and there will be many many more banana splits for me this summer.

Even if I had gone to this restaurant with others, I would have not split this split.