Strickland’s Ice Cream

I almost got my parents killed on a strenuous hike because the heat was beating them hard. So I knew, I had to reward them with ice cream and recalled that Strickland’s had the prized Dole Whip.
Haven’t tried any of the custard people have been talking about but had the Dole Whip and Ice Cream Soda (not float, added club soda instead). Yeah it satisfied what I needed for an afternoon snack. I enjoyed it but nothing really blew me away.

THE TEXTURE OF THE ICE CREAM *insert heart eye emoji here* I remember coming here my freshman year thinking this was an ordinary ice cream place until I tried the texture and it was sooooo good. It’s more like soft serve than ice cream but they have really unique flavors. My favorite is the taro ice cream and I recently tried their dole whip and I was pretty impressed. I come here all the time and I love it!

My favorite ice cream place!.. Been coming here for years.
Award winning ice cream was also named Orange County Hot list best ice cream shop in Orange County!
It’s no wonder why, they serve the freshest ice cream but also the most UNIQUE flavors. I’m always impressed.
Vanilla and chocolate flavor stays consistent but they change all other flavors every day, to preserve the daily freshness and integrity of the ice cream and let’s face it, also keeps you foaming at the mouth anticipating the next time, while trying the next award winning flavor.
What’s great is they will also give you a monthly calender that shows you the flavors they will make for each day. So u are anticipating and eager to try others!
Their pineapple dole whip, is AMAZING! And I don’t like pineapple. Go figure!
And their custard… To die for!
Definitely check this place out!

Today we got Rocky road, cookies n cream, and rainbow sherbet. (We sampled the banana Nila wafer that they had today, and there wasn’t enough banana flavor.) The Cookies n cream needed more cookie chunks, but the creamy texture is just to die for. Good crunchy texture to the rocky road since there were so many chocolate chunks and nuts. The rainbow sherbet is my daughter’s favorite, and I tasted it today, and it was super refreshing, especially the lime. Strickland’s cake cones never taste stale unlike other ice cream places. (Though they are not wrapped on the bottom, so don’t set your cone down on a dirty table.) But this place is still our favorite ice cream joint. Can’t be beat.

WHILE SOME ARE IN THE NEED FOR SPEED, I’M IN THE NEED FOR…
When that tiny tasting spoon filled with that cold thick, creamy custard first touch my warm wet tongue, I didn’t SCREAMED for ice cream, I MOANED for more. Founded in the 1936 by Bill and Florence Strickland, they knew what was up when they created this rich, creamy goodness… K. I. S. S. Keepin It Simply Salacious.
One of the best things about Unilocal is the ability to virtually stalk, I mean the ability to virtually follow fellow Unilocalers. Another great thing about Unilocal is the ability to make friends who want to hang out all over the place. Many thanks to both, I made my way behind the Orange Curtain and checked this place out.
Snuggled between the two eateries located in a roomy strip mall, this modest parlor scoops up some mighty creamy tasty custard. Sure, they only scoop up four flavors of ice cream, chocolate and vanilla as their staples, the K.I.S.S. concept works well, IMO. No need to spend minutes on end tasting a plethora of flavors, only to settle for the first one tasted. In addition to the limited flavors, it keeps the line moving, cuz there’s always a line for this thick creamy goodness.
Since my inaugural sojourn with a Unilocalie friend/​OC resident, I try to plan my OC adventures around the Strickland’s location. Having said that, cohort and I were nearby and I NEEDED to share this amazing experience with him. After rolling out of Gatten Sushi next door, and having a special spot in the tummy reserved for ice cream we slid into Strickland’s for some cold creamy custard.
Ok, so their ginormous scoops look a bit R-​rated, you get more than you pay for and the flavors… more than you bargained for.

I don’t know what’s significantly good and what to expect here. The ice creams here are… gelato? Soft serve? Or just home made ice cream???
Should I look for unique flavors? Or bold and chunky ingredients? Or just super freshness? Or melt in your mouth airy texture in their ice creams???
Flavor, they only had a few basic flavors when I visited, I tasted them all and did not find any distinctive differences in each, but I found their vanilla was nasty. It tasted like pepto bismol or a cough syrup.
Chocolate was the best I could choose during this visit, but it was more like watered down hershey syrup. I didn’t finish my ice cream tho, since I drove out all the way, I just got one cup to find anything I could praise for.
The staff are friendly and store is simple and clean, but I still don’t know what I should expect in their ice creams.

Strickland’s has continued to impress me throughout the years. In addition to thai tea, lychee, reese’s cup, blueberry, and black raspberry, I’ve added pistachio, vanilla, and pumpkin to my list of go-​to. I always avoid ordering vanilla and/​or chocolate unless I’m at McDonalds, but after trying vanilla today, I’m sold. I ordered pumpkin ice cream pie (with graham cracker crust) and pistachio ice cream pie (with oreo crust) for Thanksgiving and both were a hit! Wow, I am not a fan of pumpkin-​flavored anything, but Strickland’s has converted me. I even returned to buy a quart of pumpkin ice cream for the family before the flavor runs out. I also don’t like pie, but the thin crust at the bottom of the ice cream pie made the whole shebang delicious! The pictures of the ice cream and pies aren’t visually appealing, but trust me, the ice cream is awesome!
One more thing, I’ve always gotten my ice cream in a cup until I tried the waffle cone at Strickland’s. Since then, I always order ice cream in a waffle cone now, but none compares to Strickland’s.

Solid. Frozen custard style or not, it tasted just like ice cream and was just the thing I needed at the end of a long day.
I came and sampled the red velvet daily flavor, which was so good that I ended up getting a scoop of that. A scoop was plenty, but it wasn’t too aesthetically pleasing. It tasted just like red velvet cupcakes, and the texture even had a bite to it, so much that I thought I was eating a cupcake and ice cream together-​win combo.
Only thing that they could work on is the actual mixing-​it wasn’t consistent and at one point I had a bite full of purely cream cheese frosting or something of that nature.
Nonetheless, I was angry at myself for not having given this place a chance before, as I was too busy trying the more hyped up places. This place deserves its own hype and I will definitely walk back more often since it’s so close to campus, to try some of the other flavors.