Ice Cream Chronicles (Vol. 15): Todos Gritamos para el Helado - Diamonds Ice Cream

With a series like the Ice Cream Chonicles, you figure this blog would have a write-up on an ice cream experience on the proclaimed National Ice Cream Day, held on the third Sunday of July.

Never fear, because you've struck gold here...or would that be Diamonds?

In many ways, the feeling in visiting Diamonds is a lot like my last visit to Young's Ice Cream in Yellow Springs: in both places, I found out that there was a lot more to the place than just the ice cream.

In Diamonds' case however, the more proper term would nieves or helado, depending on whether they are water- or milk-based. Diamonds offers the Mexican-styled version of this frozen confection and offers a variety of flavors, from the standards (vanilla and strawberry) to more novel flavor variations like Piñon (Pine Nut), Queso (Cheese) and Tuna (Cactus Fruit.)

Diamonds throws south-of-the-border flavor combos into the
mix for their solidly made ice cream scoops

I started off with the standards for me: Mango and Nuez (Butter Pecan) - the flavors were both fine, with big chunks of nuts in the Butter Pecan and a pleasant fruit flavor in the mango (not quite enough to supplant Mardi Gras for my favorite mango in the area, however.) Both scoops had a chewy texture right out of the case, but acquired a more smooth mouthfeel once they warmed up.

You could go here strictly for the ice cream, but you would be missing a lot. In fact, this place reminds me of a place I liked to frequent back in California in Vallejo's La Michoacana.  This paleteria and panaderia (which is NOT related to the Columbus-area La Michoacana Markets or the paleta brand originating in Mexico (for a fascinating side story, this Wharton School of Business article has a nice summary on the attempts to trademark the brand name)), as detailed in this Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper story, offered delicious paleta popsicles that, similar to their ice cream, are both water- and milk-based. These paletas generally put most typical American-style popsicles to shame with their intriguing flavor profiles and combos and large and often visible ingredient chunks.

In Diamonds' case, we've had a chance to sample their Nuez, Fresa (Strawberry) and Mango con Chile paletas so far. Interestingly, as much as we like spicy items, the latter flavor turned out to be merely okay in our books with a one-note spicy heat and most of the mango fruit  chunks concentrated on the bottom. Much better were the Fresa (nice refreshing berry flavor) and the Nuez (big chunks of nuts in a creamy base.) Other than the plethora of flavors, a frequent buyer card should be more than incentive for anyone to continue exploring Diamonds' paleta inventory.

Diamonds matches its unique ice cream offerings with an equally
novel flavor collection in its paletas, a selection of aguas frescas
and horchatas, and other unique-sounding edibles.

While La Michoacana back in California had bakery goods (including excellent bolillo rolls) to complete its trifecta of offerings, Diamonds adds a trifecta of other product offerings to inspire future visits for us to their Northwest Columbus location. These items include various flavors of horchatas and agua frescas, elote (flavored grilled street corn) and a menu of fruit and vegetable-oriented "Specialties."These items basically consist of chip-based dishes (nachos and potato chips with hot sauce, for example) as well as intriguingly prepared fruit and vegetable salads that fuse sweet, sour and tangy profiles in various blends depending on the main focus of the dish, whether that be Piña (pineapple), Sandia (watermelon) and Pepino (cucumber.)

Diamonds Ice Cream
5461 Bethel Sawmill Center (Northwest)
Columbus, OH 43235
(614) 718-2980
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