Elite Event: Create Your Own CREAM

I love CREAM!
I already knew all about this place & had already previously writtten a solid 5 star review for CREAM, but I still learned a couple things at this Create Your Own CREAM YEE.
1^st of all, CREAM is an acronym:
Cookies
Rule
Everything
Around
Me
It’s right there in their logo. Seriously, how did I miss that? Oh yeah, I was too busy stuffing my face with awesome ice cream cookie sandwiches.
2^nd, Gus, part of the family that owns CREAM, is a really cool guy with a real passion for making CREAM’s offerings as fantastic as possible.
& that’s why a few of us truly fortunate Elites were invited to this YEE. We were asked to brainstorm new cookie & ice cream combinations.
It was formatted as a contest & we had the run of the place. Try as much of everything as was necessary to come up with an idea.
We were divided up into 4 teams. I collaborated with Louis H., Randy T. & Vanessa S. on our sweet ice cream cookie creation that was certainly worthy of victory.
But it wasn’t to be. Another cookie + ice cream combination that was almost identical to ours was the winner. I suspect espionage was their inspiration (totally just kidding guys), but it’s all good. This defeat was the sweetest defeat possible.
Thank you CREAM for inviting us Elites & seeking our creativity. Thank you Nique F. for putting together another super-​cool event, like you always do. & thanks to my teammates, the Country Bumpkin was a contender!

What a fun event! It was great teaming up with other Elites to create our own ice cream sandwiches, which involved way too much tasting ;) The people of CREAM were awesome. It was gracious of them to allow all of us in their small space. The ice cream was great and the cookies were fantastic! I’m glad I was able to finally give CREAM a try and on my birthday of all days :) I look forward to my next ice cream sandwich!

On the ninth day before Christmas, my true love gave to me…
(over) 12 Ice Cream Flavors
10 Types of cookies
3 Grades of Milk
(about) 2 dozen Unilocalers
And an Ice Cream Sandwich Contest!
This event was the perfect way to start the day. We were greeted with fresh cookies and organic milk and then proceeded to our rigorous taste testing to find the perfect cookie ice cream sandwich combo.
Thanks to owner Gus, Nique, and the rest of the CREAM and East Bay Unilocal staff for putting together an awesome event!

What a great event! Thanks Gus, sister, and staff! Thanks Nique for putting on a very sweet & intimate event!
This was my first visit to CREAM, so I had a really great time learning about the shop and what it had to offer. Gus was super nice letting us invade his shop and letting us make our own ice cream sandwiches. And the staff put up with our requests for ice cream samples. They cut up a bunch of cookies for us to try, and even prepared some waffle taco shells for our secret plan. ;) I can not say enough about how wonderful the staff and owners are at CREAM. Thank you so much!
D.A.T. should have won with the taco shelled chocolate, pistachio, almonds, and coffee neopolitan layered with snickerdoodle cookie. But that’s OK, we kind of overdid it I guess ;)
The Unilocal Elite were from everywhere! I was super glad to meet a wide range of people from different places. Elite events are so cool in the bay area!

I love fun, creative events like these. I showed up a little early and there were already fresh, warm cookies and milk greeting us.
The event started with an introduction to CREAM and how the concept started. They’re a family run business that focuses on affordable cookies and ice cream for families. They were the last stop of my summer ice cream crawl — it was nice to be back for more treats.
About twenty Unilocalers were gathered inside this tiny ice cream and cookie shop. We were given access to all of the cookies, toppings and ice cream to create our own
«CREAM.» The winning team’s creation (which featured yours truly) will be featured on the menu for the next month. I was honoured to be in the company of such fierce competition.
We were given about 45 minutes to discuss and create our own ice cream sandwich with 3 – 5 team mates. My team featured Jing and Eric. We sampled some flavours and decided that the seasonal pumpkin was really tasty. Jing mentioned that she loved the banana walnut and the white macadamia nut cookie which I also thought sounded tasty. Eric chimed in with a few ideas as well and we figured out what we wanted to create pretty quickly. My previous copywriting experience helped me a lot when deciding on a name and a story (read — poetry or haiku) to complete our creation.
The judges were in a tough place since there were so many tasty ice cream sandwiches awaiting taste testing.
# 1– Aloha Pumpkin featuring banana walnut ice cream and pumpkin spice ice cream topped with graham cracker pie crust topping sandwiched between white macadamia nut cookies. The winner of the day.
#2 — Very similar to #1 — called the Country Bumpkin featuring most of the same flavours except they had Oatmeal Raisin cookies and no topping. I didn’t overhear their creation for the record.
#3 — Pumpkin Spiced Latte — which is similar to the Pumpkin Spiced Latte drink at Starbucks. Think coffee ice cream and cookies with pumpkin ice cream.
#4 — DAT — The initials of the team members and «I want dat.» This was probably the most creative creation of the day featuring everything but the kitchen sink cookie and ice cream wise in a taco waffle cone. I give them major props for thinking out of the box and getting crazy creative.
I think all teams did really well and this was one of the most fun events yet. I am an ice cream junkie though so I am always partial to creation and food.
Thanks to the wonderful staff at CREAM for letting us take over your space for a few hours and to Nique and Unilocal for showing me that ice cream and cookies makes a good breakfast of champions. It was great to see Foodspotting representing too. If you’re not familiar with their website/​app, check it out. I’ve been a fan of theirs as well as Unilocal’s for years. I can’t wait to bring my 6 year old niece here so she can try some ice cream and cookies for Christmas.

Elite Unilocalers make their one of a kind ice cream sandwiches in a competition with other Unilocalers! We all tasted the ice cream for about an hour. Cookies too, and waffle cones, toppings and all the milk you can drink. Our group created a Pumpkin, Banana, Walnut sandwich that had oatmeal cookies on top and bottom. Oh yeah we had almond chunks between the two layers of ice cream. Well we thought we had the winner, but it turns out someone else did the same as we did but no almond chunks, they used pie crumbs to edge us out. Well it was all in fun and fun we had. The placement of the restaurant is on Telegraph, about a block from UC Berkeley.
I must say I had my fill of cookies and ice cream. Will be back with the family next time to really go bananas.

I was one of the first to show up. Couldn’t be late for ice cream for breakfast. Met a few fellow Unilocalers and Gus introduced himself. People started packing the place right at 10:00. We got the run down from Gus about how their system worked. After tasting a bunch of cookies and ice cream we broke off into 4 groups.
I was with Alex & Tim. After some serious brainstorming we came up with our concoction that was a layer of Chocolate ice cream, a layer of Snicker Doodle cookie, lots of White Pistachio ice cream, a layer of crushed almonds and more Snicker Doodle, topping it off with Coffee ice cream in a Taco shell. We named it DAT. So if we won the contest and our item was put on the menu board you could say «I want DAT»
Sad to say we did not win but I had fun.
As always Nique does a GREAT job putting together Unilocal Events.

It was one of those days, wait what? Oh where I cant properly wake up in time to save my life. Regardless I arrived early at CREAM and Gus promptly introduced himself. There was baked cookies and organic milk on the side to start off. As it came closer to 10, more of the attendees started to arrive and before we knew it, the small store as we know, was full of Unilocal Elites, judges and employees.
Gus introduced the store background, and we promptly got started with the event, taste testing the cookies and ice cream flavors with our assigned group. We all conversed, and we, TEAM 3!, opted for either a green tea and chocolate ice cream with double chocolate chip cookies, or the coffee and pumpkin ice cream with snicker doodle and cappuccino cookies. We opted for the pumpkin one, and ultimately lost to Team 1, which wasn’t too bad, but we made a kick ass flavor today.
Let me say this is my first Unilocal Elite Event in the East Bay since I’ve been in Orange County and attending those events instead. Regardless it was a very nice event, and I glad I had the opportunity to attend.
Thank you Nique for arranging everything!

It was 10 AM in Berkeley and the Telegraph Avenue Street Fair booths were just opening up. Inside the close quarters of CREAM were several hungry Unilocalers who thought that devising and consuming various «It’s It» inventions for Breakfast was a grand idea.
We were split into 4 Teams and tasked with coming up with a winning combination of cookie, ice cream, title, and backstory. I was part of Team #1 that also included Amy J and Jing F. Thanks to Amy’s copywriter skills and an early agreement on our ingredients, we quickly came up with «Aloha Pumpkin». This delicious concoction consisted of pumpkin and banana walnut ice cream and graham cracker crumbs sandwiched inside 2 white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Team 2 later claimed that we «adapted» their idea, as their substitutions of almonds and an oatmeal cookie eventually came up short in the eyes of our 4 Judges.
We were all competing to be named the ice cream version of «The Voice», which included pictures, a possible place on the CREAM menu, and a $ 6 gift card for each member of the Team. Our Judges were a tough room and were seriously emoting their inner Adam, Cee-​Lo, Xtina, and Blake. And based on their food spotting comments, they definitely knew where all the sweet spots were buried within each ice cream sandwich.
I’m not sure whether our Team looked more like Terry McDermott, Cassadee Pope, or Nicholas David, but we WON! I honestly thought that the DAT (Dat Awesome Taco) would be the winner, but our unique and flavourful combination somehow carried the Day.
It was all great fun. Many thanks to Nique, Gus, and all the other good folks at CREAM for this most enjoyable Dairy adventure!

How about that!!! Ice Cream Sandwich Brunch at CREAM!!! Thanks Nique .it was a fun event… Unilocalers get to create their Ice Cream sandwich combo and it is a contest =)…Yelpers are totally creative I may say… there were like 4 teams that get to participate… well almost everyone participated (cough Vi.cough.ehem) =). .there’s the taco ice cream sandwich combo, the almost Starbucks flavored ice cream sandwich (the coffee and pumpkin ice cream with snicker doodle and cappuccino cookies), the Aloha Pumpkin Ice cream sandwich (pumpkin ice-​cream, banana walnut ice-​cream in between macadamia and graham cookies), and the team #2 ice cream sandwich entry (oops I forgot their creation) (help me please… i don’t want them to feel that I didn’t care =(…)…
Well the winner of the ice cream creation is Team #1 (Amy J, Eric B, and yours truly).which is the Aloha Pumpkin Creation… YEAH
PS…we received CREAM gift cards. ea of us winners got one =)

So I have this thing that I can’t help. It’s called running on Asian time.
As such, I wasn’t able to participate in the ice cream contest that began promptly at 10am. Fret not; I’m a fanTASTic cheerleader and taste tester.
Space was limited, but in some ways, it was a good thing! You could actually take the time to mingle with others and debate which Elite ice cream & cookie combo would win the title of next CreamNation craze of the month. Come, now. What’s not to like? I made sure to grab a spot next to Nique too… Tiny as she is, she definitely needed my help tasting all the yummy creations. Sneaky, sneaky Vi!
Aaaaand, it was great seeing faces new and familiar. I say it all the time, but really… I need to start going to more events!!! Always a great time to be had. Thanks for putting this together, Nique and CREAM. Sugar for breakfast is always a good thing in my book.