Dairy Queen Royal New York Cheesecake Blizzard

The Royal Blizzards came to my local Dairy Queen (and others, I'm sure) about a month before they went live in Dairy Queen's across the nation and were listed on the DQ website.  At the time I couldn't figure out why DQ's take on the idea of 'core' ice creams were called Royal Blizzards, but I think their release was meant to coincide with the Queen of England's 90th birthday, which just feels really random.

Today I tried the Royal New York Cheesecake Blizzard, described as

Cheesecake pieces and graham blended with creamy vanilla soft serve then filled with a perfectly paired strawberry center.

I have a terrible cold and can barely taste anything, but I'll do my best with this review.  Also, thanks boyfriend for getting me sick during the busiest week of the semester.  I feel like death and just want to lay in bed and watch Netflix, but realistically I'll probably work for 10 or 11 hours a day for the next two weeks. PhD problems. Whine.

I'll admit that I was skeptical that soft serve ice cream could hold a core, and other bloggers have noted that their filling was less of a core and more of a blob at the bottom of the blizzard.  Surprisingly, the Royal New York Cheesecake Blizzard had some pretty good core action going on.  The strawberry filling was, like, really good.  It was suuuuuuuper sweet and syrupy, but had tons of giant strawberry chunks.  Image thick strawberry compote that would go on pancakes, but cold instead of warm.

The filling did this really cool thing where it mainly held its shape inside the soft serve, but when you dug in to a new layer of ice cream, the strawberry filling would kind of splooge out and cover the top of the Blizzard.  Eat the top layer, then repeat.  I didn't have any accumulated at the bottom of the Blizzard.

The strawberry filling was the best part of this Blizzard.  I don't think the Cheesecake chunks were the same ones used in other Blizzards, and they were too weird to be truly enjoyable.  They tasted good with a relatively strong cheese flavor, but had the weirdest texture ever.  They were way too soft and so sticky that they stuck to my teeth and the roof of my mouth.  It was so odd, and I just couldn't get over it.

The graham pieces were a nice, subtle touch adding a bit of flavor and texture to the Blizzard.

I'll give this 🍦.5/4 cones.  This would have easily been 2 or 3 cones if it weren't the weird as fuck cheesecake pieces.