Toronto Magnum Pleasure Shop.

Before anyone says anything, yes, that is the actual name of the pop-up ice cream store. I first saw this store at its grand opening but reluctantly decided to check it out some other day. It had the works. Red carpet at the foot of the door with some red velvet chains, and of course a camera crew. It was pretty amusing that no one was initially going inside the store to see what all the buzz was about. Now, there’s almost always a long lineup averaging 2-3 stores down!

My friend and I were lucky enough to catch a short line and only waited for about 10 minutes. So what did I end up getting? The first step is choosing your magnum bar to customize. You can choose from either a chocolate or vanilla magnum bar or ask them to make you a magnum bar with pre-set toppings and dip. But of course I took this opportunity to exercise my creative license. I started with a chocolate magnum bar then comes the toppings. There are 22 different toppings to choose from, and if you wanted, you could choose to have ALL of them on your bar! Some of the toppings include bacon bites, sea salt, crushed hazelnuts, rose petals, maple fudge, goji berries, dries strawberries, popcorn, and so on. For my magnum bar, I chose to have some white chocolate powder, crushed hazelnuts, sea salt and some dried strawberries. I wanted to have some goji berries as well but they ran out for the day. Anyway, the next step is to choose your dip. You can choose from white chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate (I feel like I’m missing one, so if someone knows feel free to leave me a comment to add it in). I chose to dip my bar on some milk chocolate. As she finished dipping the bar, she adds the toppings I chose on top of the dipped magnum bar. Finally, as the toppings adhere to the milk chocolate coating you are now ready to add in your final touch of drizzle. The drizzle was of also a choice between white chocolate, dark chocolate, and milk chocolate. I chose to drizzle in some dark chocolate.

And the verdict? It was quite addictive! Though the ice cream bar itself did not blow my socks off, the toppings and flavour combinations definitely made up for the $6 price tag per bar. More importantly, it brings back a playful and creative aspect when experiencing food. Often when we go to other ice cream store, or gelato shops, the finished product is already there and so it’s just a matter of choosing which flavour you’d like to try one day. I know you can choose to have different sugary toppings in some places as well, although most of the time the toppings adds too much sweetness into the mix. For the typical sweet tooth that’ll be just swell, but for some of us who don’t necessarily like overly sweet desserts it can get tiresome. Which is why I think the magnum bars are so appealing. You can choose the degree of sweetness your palate enjoys or try some toppings other ice cream stores do not ordinarily have. There is a good balance of whimsy and sophistication that the product brings to the table as you proceed with the experience of making your very own customized magnum bar and within the taste of the product itself. All in all, it was good and I would recommend it if there’s one popping by in your city but I’m sure the store bought bars are as satisfying as well.