Duck Island Ice Cream — Restaurant in Hamilton

Once you’ve had Duck Island ice cream all other ice cream becomes somewhat disappointing. Originating in Hamilton (Duck Island is the local name for a small island in the Waikato river) local ice cream enthusiasts somehow maintain the strong and delicate flavours without overwhelming or neutralising them with the cream. I liken having duck island ice cream for the first time after eating other ice creams to having listened to the ‘oompha oompha’ bass music from your annoying neighbour down the street and then visiting them and suddenly realising the music they play has a whole range of treble that you just never appreciated or heard before. It’s like duck island ice cream has the bass and treble all in balance. New flavours are added regularly and there are some special flavours for certain times of the year - like hot crossed bun flavour at easter. A $7 single is two scoops and you’re welcome to taste before you choose. At busy times there’s often no seating and a queue out the door but in good weather that’s no problem as Steele park across the road is wonderful to sit down in and eat. They also have 1 litre tubs for $12 and ice cream sandwiches for $9. Pecan butterscotch and Ambrosia...

The following review was posted by Matthew Weese 2 months ago. 'The ice cream was amazing and tasted delicious. The one issue was that the male that took my order misunderstood me and got annoyed when I corrected him. I ordered a double scoop and he gave me a single scoop which I politely corrected. He then tried to blame me by giving me attitude saying “maybe you should say that next time”. It made me kind of upset that a worker would talk to me like that.' What has happened to 'the customer is always right'? This review upset me as much as it probably did, Matthew. That level of male aggression towards other males should not be tolerated, especially in an ice cream parlour. If the manager on duty at the time had observed the staff member's attitude, he would surely have been reprimanded. I went there once on the recommendation of a relative. While I enjoyed the icecream, I won't be going back. I'd rather buy the real, original, Tip Top product from a supermarket and consume it straight from the tub. I've never been a fan of waffle cones...

This isn't so much a review of the shop as it is a review for the salted caramel with cacao crumb. I've never had an ice cream I've refused to finish. Bought a container from the grocery store because we're new to NZ and I've been trying something new each time I buy ice cream. It's soooooo salty. I couldn't even taste the caramel. I'm not sure if whoever made it is doing something wrong on the manufacturing in, but this is disgusting. This is like salt water levels of salt. I thought I could fix it by adding chocolate chips to it... it's soooo salty even bites with very little ice cream and 75% chocolate chips were over powering the chips. I let my wife try a bite because she likes salty food, she's just not a fan of caramel, and she agreed it was way too salty. I don't think I've eaten chips as salty as this ice cream. Like just label it salt ice cream.

Honestly, this kind of sucks as an introduction to this brand, other icecreams also look good but it's not worth spending so much money for such a small container to end up tossing it in...