Hot Fudge Sundae

I was in the neighborhood, had stopped to make a phone call to the East Coast on my way home from work, before everyone in my family had gone to bed. (I don't call friends after 10pm, but I can call certain family members until 11pm, at least the night owls in the family.) And I had a hankering for a hot fudge sundae. It didn't hurt that one of the late night eateries that serves hot fudge sundaes was across the street.

Hot fudge vanilla ice cream sundaes should be made as the name implies. That's HOT as in H-O-T, and vanilla as in REAL and ice cream as in CREAMY. Not too difficult. The "fudge" needs to be thick, and not some thin, runny syrup. Did I mention it should be HOT? Hot and thick and melting right into the scoop of chilled vanilla ice cream like lava pouring down a mountainside.

The sundae I had the other night was a disappointment to say the least. The fudge was not hot enough, so the frigidly cold ice cream quickly congealed it. It tasted like fudge, but it pooled into clumps like tar poured on a winter's day in Canada.

Does anyplace make a decent hot fudge sundae anymore? If you know of any place in the bay area, please let me know. There used to be ice cream "parlors" that did nothing but make sundaes (and ice cream floats, and banana splits, and milkshakes), places you could go and sit at wooden tables or in booths, not in some tiny airless room on some brightly colored, very hard plastic chair.

Frozen yogurt stands, seemingly ever more popular and possibly more healthy for you (if you don't load them up with sugary calorie laden toppings) are a poor substitute for a good, old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Because once in a while, you've just got to splurge.