Ice cream sandwiches — the perfect summer food. And they’ve moved beyond melting vanilla ice cream that leaks from between two cookies that look like they’re chocolate, but don’t taste much like they are.

Chef Hannah Pollack at Greenleaf’s Pool Room — downtown at 100 N. Sixth St. — is prepared to help you step things up. So is Ardent Craft Ales in Scott’s Addition.
The dessert sandwiches are on the menu daily at Greenleaf’s. “Families come in when there’s an event at the Carpenter Center and they see our sign,” says Jesse Rice, general manager. “People love them — people come in just for them sometimes.”

The ice-cream-maker is going all day, every day, Rice says, and the air at Greenleaf is redolent of fresh cookies baking. Pollack started making them a few months after the poolroom opened and changes flavors monthly. Right now you’ll see an upgraded version of the standard vanilla and chocolate, plus fresh strawberry ice cream between coconut shortbread and another made with maple-bacon ice cream and french toast cookies.

It was the latter that caught the eye of Ardent co-owner Tom Sullivan, who came in one night for a beer. You’ll now be able to try one yourself, along with the strawberry and coconut variety, at Ardent’s beer brunch series planned for July 26 and Aug. 30, from noon to 3 p.m.

One version we hope will come back — the Fat Elvis. We’re talking banana ice cream layered between peanut-butter cookies, which then is dipped into chocolate ganache and frozen. “That one was awesome,” Rice says.