Last year I made a terrible mistake. Despite my colleague telling me how good they were, I never bought anything from “6” ice cream shop on Bene’t Street in Cambridge. Then they closed down, and winter was spent passing by an empty shop, wishing I’d got round to trying it.

Lovely simple design for the cups

So it was wonderful to walk past the same building at lunch time on Tuesday and find that a new ice cream business has taken over the space! Jack’s Gelato is well-known around Cambridge, he’s normally found serving ice cream through portable freezers around the streets of the city, as well as at festivals and fairs. Now he’s got a new shop, and it’s officially opened, complete with an actual ice cream machine at the counter so in the future you can watch it being made!

Since I was passing by I decided to have a look at the sign outside. Different flavours are on offer each day (you can see a list each day on his Twitter account), and I had to stop when my eyes caught sight of the words “Mint Choc Chip”, “Burnt Sugar and Salt”, and…”Chocolate Orange Sorbet”!

The problem I normally have with chocolate ice cream is that while it’s delicious, it generally makes me feel a bit sick about halfway through the first scoop. Great for making sure you don’t overindulge, but it generally means I have to steer clear of chocolate, otherwise I feel like I’m wasting my money. On last year’s trip to Rome I stuck firmly with hazelnut ice cream and lemon sorbet, rather than risk feeling ill while I was trying to stare at tourist attractions.

However the sound of chocolate orange sorbet was just far too tempting for me to give it a miss, so I got a small pot. The guy behind the counter (who wasn’t Jack) was very chatty and friendly, and happy to answer my questions about the new shop. I was warned that the sorbet was still very soft as it had only recently been made, but sorbet is a bit softer than ice cream anyway, and it wasn’t dreadfully hot so I knew it would last.

So delicious I could eat it all day!

Chocolate orange tends to be a bit of a marmite flavour, people either love it or hate. I’ll happily eat a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, but my other half wouldn’t (he’s the same with chocolate mint though). I think it’s because it’s very easy to get the orange side of it wrong, either it doesn’t taste of orange at all, or there’s too much and it overpowers the chocolate.

In this case though the balance was perfect. The chocolate looked dark and tasted very chocolatey, but had none of the bitterness of very dark chocolate. Likewise the orange was a lovely note within the chocolate, it was noticeable but not excessive, and because the orange was adding the extra sweetness to the sorbet it wasn’t overly sugary, so I didn’t feel sick after eating it! In fact I couldn’t eat it fast enough, I overloaded my tiny spoon a few times and felt highly disappointed when I reached the end of the pot. I'd give this six stars out of five, were I operating a star rating on this blog.

If you’ve never been to the kind of live event that Jack has been catering to before now, then you MUST get down to his new shop. Take a big spoon with you, you’re going to need it!

Review: Aromi in Cambridge

If you're in Cambridge and want pizza without having to go to a big chain (there's a Jamie's Italian, a Zizzi, a Carluccio's and a Bella Italia scattered around the city centre) then you really need to check out Aromi! They're an independent Italian cafe, split across two sites in the city centre but only 2 doors away from each other. The larger one, with a bigger serving counter, a larger seating area and takeaway ice cream at the front, is on Peas Hill next to Cambridge Art's Theatre. The smaller one, which I went in to, is on the corner of Peas Hill and Bene't Street, two doors away!

The main thing to remember about the smaller branch of Aromi's is that it's tiny! The doorway gets

Delicious margarita pizza!

very crowded very quickly, and I've never actually seen a free seat in there at lunch time, even though there's a slightly larger basement seating area as well as the more obvious ground floor one. But this doesn't matter as Aromi pizzas come as a takeaway, so you don't have to hang around waiting for table space!

I keep mentioning pizza but actually Aromi, which specialises in Sicilian food, does sandwiches, arancini (fried rice balls) and desserts including ricotta cheesecakes. They have a selection of toppings for the pizzas and fillings for the sandwiches, and also do hot drinks including proper Italian hot chocolate (the really thick kind). Everything is made fresh, if you walk past in the morning you can see them working on everything as the kitchen is wide open, with the windows facing the street.

Should you managed to find a table then your food will be brought to you. If you're buying to take away then you'll be given a raffle ticket with a number on it. Once your order is processed they'll call your number, you collect your food, and then try to squeeze back out the door!

The thing I love about Aromi is just how good the pizzas are. The dough is fresh, the tomato sauce tastes like it's from an actual tomato, and there's great lumps of mozzarella scattered across the margarita. Everything is set out under the glass-covered counter, and once you pick what you want they cook it in their wood-fired oven right then and there. Rather than a circle the pizzas are cooked as a rectangle, and the toppings go all the way to the edge. At an average price tag of £4 you may think it's a little expensive for a slice of take away pizza, but they really fill you up so you won't be able to eat a second slice (although you'll really want one!)

If I have one small complaint about Aromi, it's that the paper bags they use really don't keep your slice warm for long :( If I'm taking mine back to the office, which I occasionally do at lunch, then I always have to reheat it in the microwave.

But a microwave can't stop these being so tasty. I think I'm going to have to go back again...