For some people, their drug of choice is LSD, but for me, it’s DDL, which stands for Dulce de Leche. Sometimes it comes in the form of medialuna with DDL inside, or as chocotorta, but mostly as ice cream. This is my third visit to Argentina; combined, I’ve spent more than a year here. During this time, I cycled extensively, both commuting and long distance. I have always been a sucker for ice cream, but I really got hooked on it during my long-distance trip in Northern Argentina in 2018. I was arriving in all those small towns during siesta time when almost everything but ice cream shops was closed, so I had no choice but to nourish myself with helado, as it’s called here. Of course, this was nothing else but an excuse to indulge in my addiction because I could have waited for the other shops and cafes to open for a proper meal. Since then, I started checking out ice cream shops wherever I travel, sometimes a few of them a day. Periodically, I also would check my cholesterol and sugar levels and would stop eating ice cream for a few weeks or months to get those levels under control. While cycling here on my Brompton, I stopped at many ice cream shops where I would get a couple of flavors: a variant of DDL and something else for a change.
Here are the most typical variations of DDL ice cream:
Dulce de Leche
Dulce de Leche con Brownie
Dulce de Leche Granizado
Dulce de Leche con Nuez
Super Dulce de Leche
Dulce de Leche Bombón
Dulce de Leche Chocotorta
Suspiro de Dulce de Leche
Flan con Dulce de Leche
Dulce de Leche Tentacion
Dulce de Leche con Nutella
Dulce de Leche Oreo
There were also less typical variations:
Dulce de Leche Negro
Dulce de Leche Nevado
Dulce de Leche Crocante
Dulce de Leche Bariloche
Dulce de Leche Casero
Dulce de Leche Bomba
Remando en Dulce de Leche
Plus, many shops have their own variant of DDL ice cream that bears the name of the establishment.
So far the best ice cream places were in Rosario.
Past week in numbers:
110 km — distance cycled
10 g — of sugar per table spoon (20g) of dolce de leche
120 — ice cream shops in Rosario alone