Scoops' out for Summer: Day 21

Day 21 of our 31-day ice cream crawl, we sent intern Nora Eileen Jones down to the oft neglected neighborhood of Woodstock.

Cloud City Ice Cream
4525 SE Woodstock Blvd., 719-4603, facebook.com/shoppdx.

Price per scoop: $3
Most popular flavor: Stumptown
The person in front of me: My friend Katrina.
Best for: Cooling off after a warm morning at the Woodstock farmer's market.

Cloud City is sort of a curiosity for the Woodstock neighborhood. Maybe it's the fact that it's located right next to a Safeway full of disgruntled parents and stressed-out students, or maybe it's because its two predecessors in the same store space were both ice cream places—the Surf Shack and then Chill—and they both closed weirdly soon after they opened. I'm hoping Cloud City sticks around forever, though.

It was a pretty slow day and Katrina and I only happened upon two other patrons, two high-school age girls typing furiously on their laptops (FREE WIFI!). We took our time chatting with the two friendly scoopers and looking over all of the flavors, which included, but were definitely not limited to, Nutella, salted caramel swirl, and lemon. They're not all made in-house, but the ones that are are helpfully labeled. I ultimately had to get the chocolate stout, made with my favorite brew from Hopworks by the same name. It was insanely good and surprisingly refreshing for a chocolate ice cream—the stout in the mixture added some tiny yet welcome ice crystals to the thick confection. It's a very mature flavor, with more rich darkness to it than your average chocolate ice cream. I tried some of Katrina's hulking Stumptown scoop and immediately realized why it's Cloud City's most popular flavor: it's thick, creamy, and just coffee-ish enough not to be overwhelming. Next time, I'll have to mix the two.

WWeek 2015