Milkster Nitrogen Creamery (Dearborn)
22079 Michigan AvenueTypically, I’m the one who plans out all the meals when we travel. I’ll book hotels close to restaurants I want to go to or scour Google looking for places if we just pick the cheapest hotel near our destination.
Our weekend trip to Detroit was a little different. I didn’t really plan any meals. For once, we just kind of winged it.
J was talking to one of L’s friend’s parents when we were trick or treating a few weeks ago. Their daughter was also selected to play in the flag football game at Ford Field I mentioned briefly in my previous post. They were excited about an ice cream place and once we found out about it, we were excited too.
L loves the idea of the big city after our trip to Chicago this summer. I started looking at hotels in downtown Detroit to give her that experience but we were looking at the last minute and everything was just too expensive. J started looking at suburban hotels. They were much cheaper so we went that route.
We didn’t really care where we stayed but J remembered that ice cream place she was told about….so she got a hotel near it.
Milkster Nitrogen Creamery in Dearborn is on a very busy stretch of Michigan Avenue near Mason Street. The building is a pretty typical downtown type building connected to it’s neighbors and very close to the very busy street. There was no parking on Michigan Avenue but we found a spot just around on the corner of Mason Avenue. There’s a parking ramp across the street on the backside of the building that we would have eventually found if we’d kept going but there was no need.
Milkster is a pretty unique local chain of ice cream places. The idea of making ice cream right in front of you isn’t new. Cold Stone Creamery has been doing it for years….but Milkster doesn’t use a cold slab or metal plate. They use nitrogen.
There are a series of steps to follow once you get in the door. Theh first step is the easiest. Grab a red solo cup from the display. The second is the seemingly simple step of choosing what you want but there are so many options, it’s not always that simple.
Once you have your cup, you turn around and hand to the employee who starts to fill it with the candy pieces or whatever else you chose as your min ins base. I picked the Oreo Cookies and Cream so he filled the cup with Oreo pieces then handed it back to me.
Step four, fill the cup with cream. There are four choices. Chocolate, vanilla, sweet cream or latte. Mine was supposed to be made with chocolate but I like vanilla ice cream better…so I went with sweet cream. You fill the cup halfway for one scoop of ice cream or all the way for two.
Step five…and this is the cool one. You hand the cup back to the employee who dumps it all into a Kitchen Aid mixer.
He starts the mixer then grabs some liquid nitrogen things down really quickly. The fast freezing of the cream makes for a super smooth ice cream. The kids were fascinated by “smoke” coming out of each of the mixers has the employee added nitrogen little by little until he had ice cream.
The final step is the toppings bar. You pay by weight so you can really add anything you want.
I just added a few Oreos to the top of mine and called it a day.
B got an ice cream treat called Cereal Milk. His ice cream started with Fruity Pebbles in the bottom and we mixed it with sweet cream. To top it off, he added on marshmallows, sprinkles, and a syringe of Nutella.
Yes, you buy syringes of liquid toppings. J did that as well with the Biscoff Voyage. Her dish started with crushed biscotti then she filled the cup with a combination of latte and sweet cream. To top it off, she added more biscotti and a syringe of caramel.
L kept hers really simple. She got the Brownie Batter. Starts witih bits of brownie pieces she then covered with sweet cream. She added some Nutella to hers to make it a little more chocolatey but that was all.
Our bill was about $35 so it’s not cheap but it is a really unique experience. The ice cream was delicious and it was really fun to watch the kids reaction as the Nitrogen was added to the mixing bowls.
We’re all about experiences when we travel and this was a cool one. I had never heard of Milkster before or the idea of Nitrogen chilled ice cream so I’m glad J got a tip on this place and booked a hotel nearby so we could bribe the kids at dinner. Be good and we’ll get some really cool ice cream.
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