Surreal Creamery

While the idea for Surreal Creamery was birthed in New York City, portions — it seems — are Texas-sized. Even smaller-sized cups and cones overflow with mounds of soft serve and toppings. While it means it’s messier to eat, it also means that Surreal caters particularly well to those who want to swap out an entire meal in favor of dessert.

The chain, which has locations in five different states and 13 cities, is notorious for its Mason jar desserts, which come stacked about 5 to 6 inches with layers of swirled ice cream. Choose from flavors like a purple taro, earthy matcha or a lightly flavored Earl Grey vanilla.

The tall swirls are coated in different flavored syrups and then showered in toppings like Oreo crumbles and crushed Biscoff. The soft serve here is dangerously melty, drippy and sticky if held on to for too long. These desserts make a great model for the camera lens, before quickly thawing into a milky puddle. But we wanted to see if they taste as good as they look.

A “Know Your Roots'' sundae naturally catches the eye when menu-browsing. The signature creation starts with a taro-flavored soft serve base packed with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, rolled in chocolate cookie crumble then drenched in a thick chocolate syrup. The taro root extract provides a clever name and a light purple tint to the sundae, which makes it stand out from its siblings on the menu.

A bright blue ‘Nom Nom Cookie’ sundae is just as visually appealing, jacketed in layers of cookie cereal and marshmallows.