The Cow

Vanilla Chocolate Custard Twist - Regular Size.

While waiting for my friends to meet me at Alice's Cafe, I wandered next door to a place called The Cow. It's a dessert place offering a confusing variety of frozen custards and Italian Ices, not to mention the necessary espresso drinks (why?). It's a cute looking place with a big cow out front and since the weather was warm and beautiful, I thought "why not?"

Meandering up to the counter, I find an attractive server who's a bit young but quite striking. Not only for her looks but also because of her friendly smile, great demeanor and positive customer service attitude. Quite frankly, if this place were closer to Towson, I'd offer her a position at The Spro.

Instead, I'm contented to note her in my mind and let Cindy and Chad know about her. She seems like she could be a good worker, maybe their could hire her instead.

There's a couple of choices when it comes to custard: vanilla, chocolate or twist. Kiddie, Regular and other sizes (I didn't ask). Cup or cone, or she would put a cone with the cup, if I wanted. I decided on the regular twist cone. Perhaps I should have ordered the kiddie.

Standing outside The Cow reminds me of the heyday of Jay's Shave Ice. In the world of frozen desserts, bigger is better and The Cow doesn't disappoint on the bigger category. The regular custard is absolutely fricken' huge. And I mean HUGE. It's a good eight inches of towering frozen dairy and eggs balancing precariously on a cake cone.

I take a lick and it's okay. It's rich and thick but there's a waxy film to the custard that I just don't appreciate. And it's pumped out of an Electro Freeze soft serve ice cream machine instead of a proper Ross Frozen Custard freezer. But the waxiness is unnerving.

Undaunted, I press on. The tip of my cone breaks off. The custard is melting faster than I can lick. Lick, lick, lick. Heavens, I almost never lick this much in the daylight! I'm falling behind. It's trickling onto my fingers. I can't keep up. I must eject.

With some tricky tongue maneuvering and swift fingers, I plop a four inch piece of custard into the rubbish bin. I can't keep up. It's too much. It's something that many operators and people haven't learned in America: more is not always more. Personally, I wish the flavor and texture of the custard were stellar and the serving size one third of what I had. Give me a taste of something to dream about and crave. Instead I'm ambushed by waxy and inferior custard.

I could use some Dave's Ice Cream right about now.


The Cow
201 Main Street
Reisterstown, MD 21136
410-526-1800