I know I’ve yet to address my unhealthy love for them here, but I’m a self-described truffle whore.  To me there is a place for them everywhere in my food, from scrambled eggs to pasta to on top of a good burger, and I have no shame in incorporating them into whatever I can. Yes, they are expensive and rather rare, but I simply love them.

With that being said, I was completely intrigued when on Twitter the other day I read a tweet by Ciao Bella Gelato about a most unusual flavour: White Truffle.  Since they follow me and I follow them on the site, I immediately engaged Ciao Bella in a bit of a conversation about it and they mentioned I should go try it at their location in Grand Central Terminal.  So what did I do the minute I had free time?  I went to Grand Central Terminal.

If you know nothing about truffles, here’s a quick summary: they are indeed a fungus and are found by the roots of trees in two different parts of Italy traditionally by trained pigs, but also today by specially-trained dogs. The more highly-prized white truffle is from Alba (Piedmonte) and the more common black truffle hails from Umbria. These odd nuggets fetch a lot of money on the market and are used in and on a variety of foods, instantly making a seemingly affordable dish in a restaurant more expensive than that crap bottle of marked-up Chianti you ordered.

When I was at Ciao Bella’s booth in Grand Central and I was talking with one of the employees, a gentleman who was earlier undecided on a flavour suddenly said he wanted White Truffle as well, and both the employees and I snickered when he was asked if he was familiar with truffles and the man replied with a “no.” Needless to say the face he made upon trying it was priceless.

Flavour-wise it’s excellent. White truffles are supremely earthy and very garlicky and I love anything that is garlicky. It was a bit strange since part of me wished it was thicker in consistency like a boursin cheese because I would honestly spread this stuff on a burger.  (If you’ve ever had a DB Burger from Daniel Boulud then you know what I’m talking about.) This gelato is rather rich and even though I wound up eating what Ciao Bella considers a small, I was literally full for about four hours with a nice, residual taste of truffle on my palate the entire time.

On the subject of gelato it’s a bit of a different story. The reason why I was so full from it was because the gelato itself was too heavy and kind of broached the texture of regular ice cream.  (Real and traditional Italian gelato melts differently than regular ice cream because of its components and this too upon melting a bit melted like ice cream.) Ciao Bella makes some nice flavours and it’s definitely great to see them in many grocery stores now because I do not like ice cream, but if you’re a gelato traditionalist, then this might leave you feeling a little stuffed.