It must be the good weather we’re having, but lots of people seem to want to get involved in our great Irish 99 hunt.
Since we announced our search for the best 99 last Monday, people have been tweeting their choice of best place to buy one, and putting up some mouth- watering pictures of their cones. Sprinkles or none? Strawberry sauce or lime? Eat the flake first or save it until the end? These are the pressing questions of summer.
According to Shane Byrne of Wicklow-based app development company Showoff, plenty of people have been downloading the 99 Finder app, designed to help you locate and rate the best cone.
“It’s a really simple app,” he says. “You just go out and find your 99 locations, then find the leaderboard and add your own cones and give them a rating. It’s easy and functional and it’s a lot of fun.”
Byrne co-founded Showoff with Philip Kirwan 18 months ago. “ We knew it was going to be good weather this summer, and what says Irish summer more than a 99?”
The 99 Finder may well tap into our nostalgia for the past. We can all remember summers long ago when our mother and father bought us a cone, and ever since then many of us have been trying to recreate that childhood moment when the whole world revolved around the soft swirl of vanilla ice-cream on top of a cone.
Each week, we will profile a particular place where people like to go to get their 99s. For me, growing up in Glenageary in south Dublin, Teddy’s was the mecca for those seeking ice-cream salvation. The little shop on Windsor Terrace, just opposite the old Dún Laoghaire baths, was founded in 1950 by Edward Jacob. Jacob grew up on Ulverton Road in Dalkey, and dressed as a Teddy boy, hence the nickname. When he retired in 1990 to live in the south of France, he sold the shop to local ice-cream man, Brian Khan.
Khan used to run a small fleet of two ice-cream vans from his house at Clarinda Park. In 1980, he put an ad in the local shop looking for a driver. Being at a loose end at the time, I answered the ad, and ended up spending the summer beetling around housing estates in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area in a little ice-cream van, playing a tinny little tune to bring the kids out of their houses, 10p coins clutched in their hands.
While Teddy’s is a favourite among ice-cream lovers in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, other areas have their own top ice-cream attractions. The Kiosk in Rathgar is a favourite spot for coneheads in and around Dublin 6. Ann’s in Howth is in the hearts of many. Also mentioned in tweets to #best99 so far are Beachcombers in Ardmore, Co Waterford; Flood’s in Ramsgrange, Co Wexford; and Spendlove in Greystones, Co Wicklow.
If it’s good enough for Ally . . .
On The John Murray Show on RTÉ Radio 1 last week, it was revealed that Calista Flockhart, had a grá for Irish 99s. According to Siobhán Byrne Learat, founder of celebrity travel agents Adams and Butler, when the Ally McBeal star was on a holiday in Ireland she had a 99 every day.
The Best 99 hunt has also raised the question of the origins of the 99. Several theories abound. Some say it was named for an Italian ice-cream shop in Scotland in the 1930s whose street address was 99 Portobello High Street. Others believe it was named for the king of Italy’s elite guard of 99 soldiers.
Whatever its origins, the search for the best one has begun. Over the next couple of months, our “coneoisseurs” will be battling their way through the summer heat to seek out the best. They will then relay the data via Twitter and Instagram, after which they’ll consume the cone before it self-destructs in the sun. We call it the “find it, tweet it, eat it” strategy. Happy hunting.
You can join the hunt and help us find that perfect 99. Tweet your ice-cream experience to #best99, take a picture and post it on Instagram, email best99@irishtimes.com with your recommendations, or download the free app from iTunes and Google Play
