ICE CREEEEEEEEAM!!!!!

Summer time, and the living's easy. Summer means sun, the beach and...ICE CREAM!
Here are the Android's picks for the cold stuff on a hot day...

Fosselman's, 1824 W. Main St, Alhambra. www.fosselmans.com
The undisputed king of old-fashined ice cream in Southern California. Great selection that changes periodically, lots of cone options and take-home pints and gallons are available as well.
The Philippine purple yam, Ube, is also known to make its presence in the freezers here.
The place even has malts, soda floats, candy and taffy. A bit of the old world brought to life here.

Mashti Malone's Ice Cream, 1525 N. La Brea Ave (at Sunset), Hollywood. www.mashtimalone.com
Only in funky, multiethnic Hollywood can you find an Iranian/Irish ice cream stand. This place was voted "Best Ice Cream in Los Angeles" by L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine and CitySearch. Their specialty is the rosewater flavors, which smell like perfume and taste wonderfully exotic. They also have more conventional, yest still exotic flavors like mango and green tea. They also have the standard ice cream fare for you vanilla/chocolate/strawberry types, which is just as good.

Scoops, 712 N. Heliotrope Drive, East Hollywood. (at Melrose)
Gelato anyone? Continuing the multiethnic theme is an Italian Gelato stand owned by a Korean American in East Hollywood, adjacent to L.A. City College, which just opened in April. Gelato is simply the Italian term for "ice cream" but it's gaining popularity in recent years because it's more dense and less fattening than its more popular cousin. The scoops go for $1.50 each. My favorites are the cappuccino and tiramisu flavors. Yum yum. The fact that it's in my own neighborhood is a plus too.

Thrifty's Brand Ice Cream at Rite Aid, citywide
I bemoaned the East Coast drusgstore behemoth's invasion in the early 1990s, taking our beloved Thrifty's Drug and Discount stores (and local identity) away and assimilating it into its corporate Borg. But to their credit, they did leave one concession to our local past -- Thrifty Ice Cream. One thing Los Angeles Rite Aids boast that others don't is an ice cream section, selling exclusively Thrifty's (yes, they retained the name) brand ice cream for the masses. The Thrifty flavors I will forver adore are Mocha Almond Fudge and Pistachio. Though the perfectly cylindrical scoops are no longer 25 cents like they were during my youth, you can still get a scoop or two for some loose change. The long lines in the ice cream section during hot summer days take me back to my youth.