I’m sure all you Isla Vista residents have heard of The Loop, but I’m not here to talk about the apartment complex. I’m here to talk about something better than apartments. I’m here to talk about dessert. Churros with ice cream, to be exact.
Khuyen Nguyen / Daily Nexus
Churros and ice cream are two desserts that are delicious when you eat them separately, but when you combine them, they are 10 times better. Anyone who knows me knows that I love dessert. Whenever I scroll through my Facebook, I always see numerous Business Insider videos that introduce new dessert stores all over the country, but I never knew that there’s one a few miles down the street from my home in Westminster. From then, I started to notice the pictures on Instagram and multiple Snapchat stories, and this has encouraged me to join in on this trend. I was so ecstatic to finally be able to try this confection. THE LOOP: Handcrafted Churros is a bustling sweet shop that sells churros over ice cream with various toppings. Walking into this store, I was as excited as a kid in a candy store! I noticed the line loop around the store, and in my head I was thinking, “No wonder this place is called the loop!” However, the line moved a lot faster than what I expected. The churros that are served here are not your typical churros. They are handcrafted, meaning that the shape of the churros were made into the loop by hand. With this, you have the option of enjoying them in three ways: dipped, glazed or chilled.
Because there are so many options, you might be wondering how to actually order this. The Loop is not the stereotypical read-off-the-menu type of establishment. At The Loop, you get to customize your order to your own liking. Under each category, there are five flavors that you can pick from. Dipped, meaning that your churros can be dipped in five different sauces: strawberry, tiramisu, cookie butter, nutella or dulce de leche. You can also glaze your churros with matcha crunch, cookies and cream, choco crunch, sprinkle berry or speculoop. Along with that, The Loop adds various toppings onto the churros, such as fruity pebbles, crushed Oreos, almonds, sprinkles, etc. Lastly, you can choose to chill it in soft serve ice creams with either caramel pop, cookies and cream, cheesey berry, choco puff or double butter. Along with these options, their signature churro tops off this aesthetic looking dessert. The amount of options they have here is ridiculous. Because I am a very indecisive person, it took me a while to decide what I wanted, but I settled for a glazed matcha crunch churro with cookies and cream soft serve.
Khuyen Nguyen / Daily Nexus
Right before I took my first bite, I remembered that I have to update my Snapchat and take various pictures for my social media to let people know that I have finally hopped on this bandwagon. The pictures came out amazing; they were good enough for the Instagram post that I was aiming for. But what about the taste? This is the moment that I had been waiting for after months! I took my first bite. To my surprise, the taste of the dessert was a big disappointment; the exact opposite of how it looks. Even though the outside is very appealing, it doesn’t change the fact that the churro itself was not delicious. The whole appeal of a churro is its cinnamon-y, crispy, warm taste. However, The Loop churro is very thin, crunchy and borderline hard. The multiple layers of extra toppings take away the original taste of the churro; in fact, all you can taste is the excessive amount of sugar. I felt as if I was just eating plain rock sugar. I imagined that the churros would melt in my mouth after being dipped in ice cream but instead, it was just a combination of cinnamon and excessive sweetness.
The idea of combining churros with soft serve is fantastic, but I don’t think that it is worth $5, especially when the churro itself is not delicious. In fact, you can actually recreate this for half the price. Just grab a $1 churro and a small cup of soft serve non-fat yogurt at Costco, and there you have it. Your own do-it-yourself soft serve topped with churros. Like the old saying, “All that glitters is not gold,” The Loop is a perfect example. Although the visual component of the dessert is unique and impressive, the taste was lacking. If you are looking for delicious churros, The Loop is not the place to go. However, if you are looking for a cute or aesthetic photo for Instagram, this place is perfect place.
