Talenti Banana Chocolate Swirl

This review will be my fifth review of a banana ice cream in the last year and I'm not entirely sure why. As you may know, every single time I purchase and review a banana ice cream I simply end up saying, "I don't really like banana ice creams, but if you do, you'll probably like this." Which I am sure isn't entirely thrilling for you to read. But as I'm currently in between ice cream projects (I'm thinking of going for the whole line of Til the Cows Come Home, next) I get kind of listless and weird and more existential-crisis-y than normal in the ice cream isle and just buy pints I would never normally buy. Who knows, maybe this will be the banana ice cream to finally convince me I like banana ice cream?

This flavor is described as We started with rich banana gelato and added a ribbon of golden Argentine caramel and bittersweet chocolatey bits to balance it out. Consider it the best banana flambé that's never actually been on fire. 

Before I get to the flavor, I just want to say this is the most lackluster Talenti description I've ever read. Usually the Talenti description writer has me actually lolling, but not this time. Hopefully the gelato will be better. 

First bite: there's a lot of very sweet banana flavor, but it's not too strong. Often banana ice creams just overwhelm me with overpowering banana flavor, but this was more mellow. I'm not entirely sure how they did that, given that bananas are the second ingredient in this pint behind milk. But either way, I enjoyed the base flavor! The bittersweet chocolatey bits also did exactly what the description said they would. They were dark and quite frequent and provided the perfect balance to the sweet base. They were also brittle and added a perfect crunch throughout the pint. Lastly, the swirl. After a bit of googling, Argentine caramel is apparently simply dulce de leche, made with milk and sugar, as opposed to regular caramel, made with sugar, water and heavy whipping cream. The caramel swirl in this pint was on the darker, more complex side. So while it was sweet, it also helped balance out the flavor of the base. There also wasn't a ton of the swirl. Enough that I got my caramel fix, but not so much that it stole the show, which I think is just perfect!

All in all, this is probably the best banana flavor I've had. There are still a lot of other kinds of flavors I would eat before eating banana ice creams, but I would buy this flavor again. There were enough other elements in the pint so that the banana wasn't overpowering. 🍦🍦🍦/4 cones!