I have a deep love of ice cream that's been ongoing for as long as I can remember. I try to avoid ice cream as much as possible because its charms are just too difficult to resist. But seeing as it's summer I've allowed myself to indulge somewhat more frequently. Most of the time I walk to the nearby Stewart's for their delicious, and affordable, $1.50 cones.

But I heard of a new kid in town, the Cold Stone Creamery, recently opened in Guilderland's upscale Stuyvesant Plaza. The local behemoth of a shopping center, Crossgates Mall, has a similar shop called the Marble Slab Ice Creamery (or something to that effect), which I have tried and found it far superior to Cold Stone.

My boyfriend and I stopped by about a week ago around 9:30. They were, somewhat to my surprise, still open, and not so much to my surprise, had a line out the door. The line did seem to be moving rather fast, so we decided to go ahead and try Cold Stone Creamery.

Upon entering the brightly lit, standard-looking ice cream shop, we were greeted by an overly effusive young worker who handed us a menu of different creations we could select. I looked it over while we were waiting in line.

The menu has the creations categorized according to which flavor of ice cream is used as a base, into which various toppings are mixed. For the less-creative among us I suppose it provides a good starting point. And, I might add, it also suggests several toppings in each ice cream idea, further boosting the final cost of your dessert.

Cold Stone Creamery does not boast a long list of ice cream flavors. All are plain and most are pretty standard flavors, with the exception of perhaps the cheesecake and cake batter flavors. The gimmick is that you can create any kind of ice cream you'd like using the various candy, cookie, and fruit mix-ins that Cold Stone offers.

To their credit they use high-quality, name-brand candies (think M&Ms, Snickers, etc) and their ice cream is, as the brag, made fresh daily.

I selected cake batter ice cream with Reese's Pieces mixed in. The ice cream did indeed taste like cake batter, which was good. My boyfriend had French Vanilla something or other. As a vanilla ice cream afficionado I can say that there was nothing French about this vanilla. But the ice cream was good, smooth, and creamy.

Obviously Cold Stone Creamery uses high quality ingredients and adheres to high standards of cleanliness. Neither of these aspects are a problem.

My problems with Cold Stone Creamery are rather with the service and the price.

I do not like anything that could even be remotely deemed "cutesy," nor do I go for hokeyness. The servers at Cold Stone sing a ridiculous song each time they get a tip, each some variant on a real song, i.e., I've Been Working on the Railroad. I'd avoid tipping so as not to hear the songs. Also the servers are instructed to tell each customer, "If you don't absolutely love your ice cream, just bring it back and we'll make you a new one." Nice that we're offered a money-back guarantee, but after hearing this phrase repeatedly, it seems blasé.

Quality ice cream always comes at a price, but the prices at Cold Stone Creamery were astronomical. I am more than willing to pay money for good food of any sort, but two bowls of ice cream, one small, one medium (or as they so disgustingly call them at Cold Stone, "Like it" and "Love it"), with the purported single free mix-in, should not cost $9.00. For that price I want my ice cream to be orgasmic, and while it was good, I was not writhing with pleasure. I'll take my $1.50 cone over that anyday.

For more information visit www.coldstonecreamery.com, where you can view an extensive list of Cold Stone Creations as well as nutritional information and find a location near you.


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