Sirena Gelato

So Mallard's wasn't actually the only place I got frozen desserts while visiting relatives in Bellingham. While walking in the Fairhaven neighborhood, we spotted a very happy woman walking down the street eating an ice cream cone. We obviously stopped her and asked where she had gotten it. She smiled and pointed us toward Sirena Gelato, which she said was just the best. Most of what I saw of Fairhaven was quaint quiet streets and adorable brick buildings. Sirena Gelato was no different and they added to the feel of the neighborhood with their old-timey looking wooden sign hanging outside the shop. 

One thing I liked about Sirena, meaning siren or mermaid in Italian, was that on the menu next to each size, they told you how many different flavors you could get in each size. For example, in a small you could get up to two and in a medium up to three. Sometimes I go into a shop and I don't want a certain portion size so much as I want to try a certain number of flavors. But then again, I know I'm not necessarily normal when it comes to frozen dairy desserts!

After much difficult deliberation caused by the beautiful and delectable looking displays I decided on a small with Salted Caramel and Sangria (see pictures below). Wine, especially sangria, holds a special place in my heart not too far down the ladder from ice cream. There is a place in upstate New York that sells wine ice cream at 4% alcohol (!!!!) and they do actually ship. However, you can't buy fewer than 4 pints for them to ship to you, the pints are pricey, and the overnight shipping in the cooled container is expensive. I've had this on my ice cream bucket list for a while, so I was excited to have a much cheaper opportunity to try wine ice cream. I've actually had wine ice cream before, my roommates made some for me for my birthday (best roommates ever!), and it was very strong red wine. I was excited to see what a more fruity wine frozen dairy dessert would taste like. 

I didn't get the cappuccino, but I thought the display was really cute!

Doesn't that look so pretty?

The sangria gelato was very citrusy, and because of the light, airy, and also cream consistency of this gelato, it almost tasted like a citrus sherbet at the front of the flavor profile. The red wine taste, at the back of the flavor profile, was light and subtle. Overall this was a very good gelato, but I would have liked to have a stronger red wine taste. Sometimes it was almost difficult to detect over the strong and bright citrus flavors. 

The salted caramel was also very good. It was much saltier than other salted caramel dairy desserts I've had, and I definitely think that is a good thing. Really having a salty flavor (obviously) separates out a salty caramel dessert from just a caramel one. Eating other salted caramel ice creams and such I sometimes think places just rename their caramel products salted caramel without actually changing anything in order to make money since salted caramel is so popular right now! Sirena Gelato, however, did not do this. I was very impressed with this flavor. In addition, I really liked that the texture was significantly and noticeably different than ice cream. The other gelato I have tried on this blog did not really accomplish that. This was very light but still creamy. Delicious! Sirena Gelato also makes and decorates one batch at a time and uses local dairy and also uses local fruit whenever it can. I definitely recommend you stop by if you have an opportunity!

I don't normally get this excited about the way frozen dairy desserts look, but isn't this gorgeous?