No place like home

I suppose one or two of you out there have as much time on your hands as you have disposable income. You’re the type that flies to Paris for a collector’s-item Cardin alligator handbag or rents a space shuttle just to see if the Great Wall of China really is visible from up there. I know a girl so vain she thought she’d while away a recent weekend with a sightseeing jaunt to Mount Olympus (the one on Mars, not in Washington state). Amazing postcard, outdone only by the stamp.

The good news, assuming she’s equally obsessed with her ice cream, is that she need not trek all the way to Hawaii (supposedly the confectionary capital of the universe) for the best there is. Unassuming little Poway, in the heart of San Diego County, is home to a Lappert’s Ice Cream & Coffee Lounge franchise—and believe me, that’s all she needs to know. Costa Rican Plantain Cajeta? Macapuno Sorbet? How about Guava Cheesecake, of all things? Lappert’s has thought of every flavor even remotely exotic, and it seasons them all with nearly twice the butterfat of the other guys. I dare you to stop at one goblet of Kauai Pie, a mix of macadamia nuts, coffee-flavored ice cream and coconut—at $3.50, that’s the cheapest (and most insanely delicious) ticket to Hawaii I could ever expect to find. And Lappert’s treats its coffee blends exactly the same way; the Macadamia-nut blend ($11.25 per 1-pound bag) features the best Tahitian vanilla and pairs with the Kauai Pie like the rarest Riesling and caviar paté.

I don’t suppose I can persuade this gal that this unearthly treasure isn’t that far away, but that just leaves more ice cream and coffee for you and me while she’s on her way to the asteroid belt. It awaits at 12265 Scripps Poway Parkway between 11:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays and 11:30 a.m. and 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays (call 858-577-0015). True, Poway’s panoramas don’t measure up to those around Mars—then again, I hear butterfat’s at a premium on Mount Olympus.