Photo by David Moore

SWEET SPOT

Take a spoon, crack the Goldbrick, and it shatters into fragments that melt on the tongue, leaving creamy pools of milk chocolate. The best part of the pecan-studded topping, which hardens like glazed brick over ice cream, is just inside the icy goblet, where the sauce gathers into chunky ores. Rich vanilla ice cream is the perfect foil for malty-chocolate. This simple sundae is simply addictive.

In fact, Don & Charlie’s co-owner Don Carson used to pour the topping over a half gallon of vanilla ice cream and eat the whole thing. He doesn’t do that anymore, but once you taste Goldbrick, such excesses aren’t hard to imagine. The $5.99 goblet is a more reasonable portion, big enough to share, but you might not want to. Unlike other coating chocolates, this hardens without parafin or gums, so there isn’t a waxy mouthfeel. It relies on coconut oil.

Carson discovered the topping at a Florida restaurant in the ’70s. Smitten, he tracked it to a candy company called Elmer in Ponchatoula, Louisiana.  When he moved to the Valley and opened Don & Charlie’s in 1981, the Goldbrick came with him. Try it. You’ll be smitten, too.

DETAILS
Don & Charlie’s
7501 E. Camelback Rd., Scottsdale
480-990-0900
donandcharlies.com