By Ken Valenti

WESTPORT–When you’re a kid and life is simple, so are your ice cream flavors. Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, of course. Also cookie dough, mint chocolate chip and butter pecan.

But in adulthood, when your tastes are more complex, you may appreciate nuance in your ice cream flavors. Some pink peppercorns for instance. Or lemon verbena.

Well, whichever way you like your ice cream, you can find it at MOMU Ice Cream, 575 Riverside Ave.

Can’t decide? Try the sampler. Four single scoops in one tray, with a few triangular waffle chips.

Here were my flavors, and a note or two on each one:

In the “strawberry, chocolate and pink peppercorn,” the peppercorns added a hint of savory underpinning to the two classics it accompanied, and the strawberry chunks were not icy, as so often happens when the fruit is mixed into ice cream. The “rhubarb strawberry almond crumble” featured slivers of almond, of course, but even better, a pleasant almond flavor permeated the whole scoop. The “hazelnut chocolate swirl” was scattered with whole hazelnuts. In “lemon verbena blueberry,” the lemony bite added a bright, citrusy pop.

Other, simpler, flavors also share space on the menu at MOMU. Peaches and cream. Cookie Monster. Berry swirl. The MUD flavor includes chocolate cream cookie from Kneads bakery across the street.

In addition to scoops, you can order milkshakes, floats and even an affogato – a scoop of ice cream in espresso – for when there’s real adulting to be done. 

The Kneads bakery is only one of MOMU’s sources of inspiration. The flavor makers at MOMU peruse the Westport Farmer’s Market each Thursday looking for ingredients, and use artisanal suppliers for other elements in their ice cream, such as Shaggy Coos Milk in Easton, the store’s website says.

But no matter what, all ice cream that isn’t devoured right away ends up the same – as ice cream soup. Like it or not, it’s just the law of ice cream. In the sampler, the end was a melted mélange of greatest hits from my scoops. With a sampler, if you don’t mind melted ice cream, you get treated to a mix of everything; strawberry, chocolate, almond – and a dose of lemon verbena. 

Ken Valenti

^{_{A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.}}