When I finally opened my eyes, we were in Rita’s! OMG, dreams do come true! A Rita’s in California (Castro Valley, to be exact)! I couldn’t believe it, I think I cried.

I remember when the first Rita’s came to the Lehigh Valley, PA a looong time ago. It’s always been one of my favorite reasons to go home to visit during the summer, since it’s only open during the summer months.

If you don’t know Rita’s it’s an Italian ice place that serves italian ice, frozen custard and blended ice/custard drinks. It is so good! My favorite thing to order is a lemon and chocolate gelati – which is frozen custard layered with italian ice.

This is exactly what I saw when I opened my eyes…

Yay Rita’s in Castro Valley!

Here’s the freezer…

Vanilla custard cone with rainbow sprinkles.

And here’s mine! It’s a Florida orange and chocolate gelati.  I usually get lemon and chocolate, but they didn’t have lemon (which kind of blew my mind, ugh!). The orange was really good but I still like lemon best…

If you’ve never had custard before, it’s a little lighter and denser than traditional ice cream. It’s sooooo good!

I’m so happy that Rita’s is only 20 minutes away, it’s really weird to have it out west because it’s my east coast nostalgia but it’s so awesome and I’m so happy!

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Inside you’ll find an ice cream counter to the right and and desserts straight a head full of pies and cakes. I couldn’t decide what to get so I went for something totally different and ordered an affogato.

See all the old nostalgic toys in the back on the shelves and on the wall? They’re all for sale if you’re looking for some fun vintage goodies.

Cool old rocket gumball machine.

A fun pony!

Here’s my affogato. It was really tasty. We sat in a really cute little booth against the wall which I forgot to take photo of.

If I lived in this neighborhood I could see myself hanging out at this place regularly. It was nice, simple, colorful, not pretentious at all and had really friendly employees. I even got a chance to chat with the owner (whose shirt matched the green walls perfectly) about pizza and eating in general.  Really nice guy!! (Hi if you’re reading this)

Toy Boat Dessert Cafe
401 Clement St
San Francisco, CA 94118

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Here’s the outside… very cute, retro.

When you walk in, this bar area is straight and to the back. You’ll see it against the back wall.

It was after lunchtime when we arrived so the place was empty. We sat down at the bar in the back and had the place to ourselves.

Like any good shake purist, we decided to try the Orange-Sicle and a I got a good ol’ root beer float.

The orange-sicle is “Fresh orange juice, tangerine and vanilla extracts, cream, turbinado syrup, citric acid, soda”. Everything is made by hand, step by step, the old-fashioned way. The girl making our drinks was wearing a white paper hat. There were small bottles of liquids that were used in some of the drinks, just a drop or two. Never saw anything like this before.

Ahhhh the Orange-Sicle. Light and frothy, creamy and citrus-y.  Very good.  I know it’s probably extremely offensive to compare this creation to an Orange Julius, but I can’t help myself… it was really good, and had that lightness like an orange julius (sorry).

Here she is toasting the marshmallow that goes on my root beer float. Cool!

Overall, the root beer float was really good, and the toasted marshmallow really was an extra special touch! The only thing I would change is make it slightly more carbonated. I’m weird when it comes to flat-esque sodas. But it was great and I would love to go back and have another one!

I must admit, I grew up in Pennsylvania drinking Stewart’s Root Beer and also sometimes Boylan’s and A-Treat… we used to go to Stewart’s Drive-In in New Jersey.  Root beer, birch beer and sarsaparilla are a big deal in PA.. kind of spoiled in the root beer department.

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Fenton’s is a classic diner/ice cream shop that has withstood the test of time and is still chugging along. Parking is a nightmare and unless you wait for one of their 8 or 9 spots, you’ll be circling around the block and up and down the street looking for a spot, especially if it’s a warm night out when everyone and their mother wants a scoop of ice cream.

We usually sit at the counter because it is faster and our friend goes there so often that she knows all of the cooks by name so she likes to chat it up… It does not surprise me that every time we go there I eat way more than I planned. This time I thought I was under control by agreeing to share an appetizer sampler and eat only the smallest sundae, but I ended up eating half of an deviled egg sandwich which was ordered by mistake, ate a handful of onion rings, the jalapeno poppers and 2 chicken fingers from the appetizer sampler and a small cup of mocha almond fudge ice cream.

This egg salad sandwich was good. I can’t remember ever ordering an egg salad sandwich anywhere ever in my lifetime, and I’m not really a huge egg salad person, but this sandwich was good. I credit most of it to the bread – perfectly toasted sourdough. Leave out the olives next time, too many!!

These are some killer onion rings. You know, the regular frozen kind in a bag – so good… cooked perfectly golden brown and comes with ranch dipping sauce. YUM!! I also like how the onion inside is soft enough so that you don’t have to really gnaw on it when you take your bite… don’t you hate when the whole onion slice comes out of the breading?

Alas, the appetizer sampler for $8.99. Included are mozzarella sticks (the fat kind), zucchini sticks, jalapeno poppers (with cream cheese), chicken fingers and 3 dipping sauces. When I come to Fenton’s I’m notorious for ordering poppers and chicken fingers, so this platter is good for sharing the other stuff (and cheaper than ordering each item individually). Can’t complain here, it’s fried and FRIED = GOOD.

Lastly, my dessert. A “petite” scoop of the Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream. All of the ice cream is hand made in small batches right at Fenton’s. It’s all very good. I think I prefer this flavor over the Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch because the almonds are chopped up in small pieces whereas the peanuts in the CPBC are whole, and it’s just too much peanut!

Fenton’s is a classic and I’m sure I’ll be back there soon.

Fenton’s Creamery
4226 Piedmont Ave
Oakland, CA 94611
(510) 658-7000
www.fentonscreamery.com

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