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Fruity,
nutty ice creams bring unique treat to CF
Aug.
14, 2007
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You Go |
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Name:
Ralph's Deli, Diner and Bakery.
Owners: Ralph and Cindy Couey.
Address: 24 W. Grand Ave., Chippewa Falls.
Phone: 723-4025.
Hours: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays
and Saturdays; 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sundays. Hours will be 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays
and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays during the apple season, Aug.
20 through Oct. 31.
Reservations: Yes.
Smoking: No.
Wheelchair accessible: Yes.
Parking: In lot, on site and on street.
Prices: Largish single scoops, $1.29; double, $1.79.
Extras: Ralph's sells bottled root beer brewed by
Sprecher Brewing Co. in Milwaukee, from Ralph's recipe. Olson's
Ice Cream Parlor and Deli is at 611 N. Bridge St., Chippewa
Falls, 723-4331. LaGrander's is at 18143 Highway X on Lake
Wissota, 723-0672.
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Maybe
Chippewa Falls could become the ice cream capital of Wisconsin.
Here's the scoop:
Olson's
Ice Cream has been making its 20-plus flavors downtown since 1944.
LaGrander's started doing the same on Lake Wissota in 1978, when
Bob LaGrander couldn't find a dish of butter pecan to suit him.
Ralph's
Deli, Diner and Bakery — a new downtown restaurant — started
selling its own ice cream in April 2007.
All three
establishments make fine ice cream — creamy smooth, mostly
mild-mannered, and refreshing — but Ralph's adds something
unique.
"Ralph"
is Ralph Couey Jr. He and Cindy Couey, his wife, own Cinder C Farms
and Connell's Orchard.
Amazingly,
they grow all the fresh fruit, produce all the maple syrup and make
all the various dough and cookie chunks featured in Ralph's ice
cream.
In a
telephone interview, Ralph used his Cherry-Nut Ice Cream to illustrate
his goal: "at least one cherry or nut" — that is,
one piece of fruit or nut or crunchy tidbit — "in every
bite."
Timm's
Dairy of Eau Claire freezes Ralph's ice cream according to Ralph's
recipes. In the restaurant, Ralph usually wields the scoop.
Tasting
notes: Ralph's Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream enlivened a medium-dense
cream base with tart bursts of plump whole berries and a pleasant
buttermilky tang. In the Blueberry-Nut, these same berries commingled
with walnut, almond and macadamia nut chunks in a cobbler-like celebration
of summer.
Audrey's
favorite, the Maple-Nut, set the sand and pebbles of finely ground
and coarsely chopped walnuts against the clean sweetness and smoothness
of the Coueys' outstanding Maple Syrup Ice Cream.
The Chocolate-Amaretto-Cherry
lightened a liqueur-suffused dark-cocoa base with chunks of juicy,
fresh fruit. And the Caramel Fudge Explosion, Jeff's favorite, folded
oozy-wet ribbons of caramel and chocolate sauces into good vanilla
ice cream, but incompletely; here are rich sweet pools and puddles
for discovering.
Main
Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the
fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite
restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.
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