Although most of us like to take our frozen refreshments in the form of piña coladas, and daiquiris while visiting tropical islands sometimes an ice cream will hit the spot. The Dominican Republic has a number of different ice cream brands to choose from including Haagen-Dazs, Baskin Robins and the local favorite Bon ice cream (Helados Bon). So which to choose?

Haagen Dazs

As far as taste goes there is little competition for Haagen-Dazs. We recently stopped by a store in Santiago and yes it is just as good as in the States but also just as expensive if not more. A dish with three scoops of ice cream some cookie garnish and some caramel topping went for about $10 USD. Excellent ice cream but probably not somewhere I would go regularly.

Haagen-Dazs is also only available in a couple of the largest cities Santo Domingo and Santiago. Santiago was not listed on their website, but yes there is a store there which means there could be other locations that are not listed and I have not found yet.
(more…)

The Las Colinas Mall is a multi-story mall located on Ave 27 de Febrero in Santiago. They have both escalators and an elevator to get between the different levels.

Jumbo Super Market

The Jumbo Supermarket in the Las Colinas Mall is kind of like a Wal-Mart in the US. You find just about everything there. Food, liquor, clothes, household items etc. They also have a good bakery and a cafeteria style food area.

Their bakery is very good. We tried a couple different styles of fresh baked bread as well as several pastries. One of our favorite pastries was a custard cone with about a cup of very good flavored vanilla custard in a flaky pastry cone. They also had some very good fruit pastries. This will likely be one of the locations we will stop by regularly in the future.

Las Colinas Food Court

(more…)