After extending my stay in Portland a day longer than I’d anticipated, I found myself with no obligations until I needed to get to MIT for my radio show. Having meandered up Route 1, I made my way hastily back to New Hampshire before I detoured around the tolls. It was just south of Portsmouth that I snacked upon Cookie Monster in a sugar cone.
I can’t find much on this place as far as any sense of history goes. I think I stopped here at one point with my dad when I was in junior high and was trying to buy my first stereo. I know that we went to State Street Discount which is close to across the street, and then we had ice cream somewhere nearby. No idea about what flavor I had, and I wound up picking up all of my Technics unit at a store in the Pheasant Lane Mall.
There’s a second location for Lago’s that’s over in Rochester. Actually I’m not sure which is first and which is second, but if you check the website, the Rochester store has a way better logo as they make it look like the Man in the Mountain is licking a cone. This place is pretty prefab with a long line of windows for selling scoops through and an indoor seating area on one end.
Lago’s offers a ton of flavor options. Limiting myself to just the hard ice cream, I had to try their Indian Pudding ice cream first. They bill it as their fall flavor and without the richness offered in farm-based ice cream shoppes, it didn’t have the boldness to make it transcend seasons. I averted myself from the Chocolate Monkey as soon as I realized it was just their variation on banana and chocolate. That’s when I noticed the sign at the bottom – intended for those half my height – for Cookie Monster ice cream.
A simple vanilla base is dyed a light blue color, in an attempt to resemble the fur color of my favorite Muppet. What they add to that are Oreos, animal crackers, and chocolate chip cookies. The cookies all fight for space and bring interesting flavors to each bite, with none dominating overall, but each bite having very distinct characteristics. The blue vanilla was a very simple flavor and while this cone may have been carried better by other bases, none of them are easy to make blue.
There’s a load of picnic tables in the adjacent lot, and I tried to get them all in this shot, but got a few at least. I was hoping all of this green would bring the blue in the cone out, but this image appears far more aqua than the reality. There’s signage over here that makes it seem as though that area is used for events during the summer, or maybe they just set up an auxiliary stand for overflow.
Cone – baby $2.50 kids $3.25 small $3.75 large $4.25 triple$5.25
Sundae – small $5 large $5.75 super $6.75
Frappe $4.75 extra-thick $5.50
Lago’s Lone Oak Ice Cream
603 964-9880
Open year April-October
Daily noon-9p