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pistachio with real pistachios.....

I like vanilla .......

I love vanilla... But a good butter pecan, pistachio, or mint chip will make my day.

I don't know if they sell it anymore, because I have not seen it in a while... but to me the BEST flavor is Haagen Dasz Swiss Almond Chocolate with chocolate covered almonds... I can't have chocolate anymore but if I see it, i'd sin in an instant.

Caramel Cone from HG is delicious, especially if you let it warm up a bit. But I do love me some mint chocolate chip and vanilla ice cream as well. Sometimes when ice cream has too much junk in it you can't taste the ice cream part!

chocolate with stripes of salty peanut butter

My three favorites are chocolate, vanilla, and huckleberry. On the rare occasion that I myself am feeling fancy enough for something a little more exciting, I have been known to enjoy Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie flavored ice cream.

If I have to pick just one, it's mint chocolate chip.

Haagen Dazs limited edition flavor sticky toffee pudding. : ( Chocolate will do and also dulce de leche.

I'm always game to try an untraditional flavor (well, except maybe the garlic ice cream I read about on the Turkey Hill blog). I'll only get plain vanilla or chocolate if those are the flavors available at the buffet. Any ice cream is better than none at all, but there are so many other interesting options!

Ben & Jerry's Imagine Whirled Peace should change his mind!!

I think vanilla is underrated. I'll take a nice, rich french vanilla over other ice cream flavors a lot of times.

I also love Thrifty's strawberry cheesecake, and our local dairy's fresh peach in the summertime.

Not big on all the custom mix-ins at Coldstone, though. Also, I sampled their "Chocolate Cake Batter" last time we went there, and it tasted....just like chocolate cake batter. And not in a good way. In a raw, goopy way. *shudder*

There was a chocolate malted milk ice cream that I used to get when I was a kid that was my absolute favorite. Fairly light on the chocolate to let the malt flavor shine through.

But now that I've got the evil kitchenaid mixer attachment, I'm always making new and interesting flavors. Cashew butter ice cream worked out well. I want try Alton Brown's avocado ice cream some day.

now if you're talking home made .... my favorites would be peach..
cherry vanilla, blackberry! raspberry .....! just about all flavors.

Butter brickle, mint-chip, coffee, rocky road...

Dulce de leche and others in the caramel/toffee/butterscotch family..

Mackie's Honeycomb Harvest (in the UK)
Mayfield's Blueberry Cream Pie & Birthday Cake flavours (in the US)
Maggie Beer's Vanilla Bean and Elderflower (in Australia)

Try making your own to show off how good something unusual can be. I like the Bourbon Pecan recipe over on the Cooking Light website. Giada's recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut gelato is pretty awesome, too (and a good gateway ice cream because it is nut flavored, but without extra "things" in the ice cream...unless you add the toasted hazelnuts into the ice cream instead of using them as a garnish like I did).

Blue Bell Tin Roof is the best ice cream of all time. It's pretty traditional: Vanilla with a chocolate syrup swirl and chocolate covered peanuts. There's something about the combination that I absolutely love. Plus it never seems to get hard; the vanilla always stays creamy!

Anyone else have a Bruester's near them? Their Graham Central Station is my new addiction... vanilla ice cream with graham cracker crumbles and chocolate flakes. Delish!
As far as supermarket brands go, I have to stick with B&J Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.
As a kid i remember getting Green's ice cream, vanilla with a big swirl of peanut butter through it! Perfection... also easy to imitate with good vanilla ice cream and a glob of melted PB :-)
yum!

Definitely inclined to say pistachio or mint chocolate chip...I guess I like green ice cream.

Hillary
Chew on That

I was just in Hawaii and had the BEST ice cream/sorbet combo: mango and raspberry sorbet with a swirl of coconut ice cream. Amazing!!

Maple-walnut or fresh peach

Oooh so many ideas. Basic flavors - mint chocolate chip, espresso, peanut butter. Non-traditional - anything with cheesecake and berries, red velvet, cake batters, sweet cream, cinnamon. B&J - used to be Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk until they discontinued it, but also the Peanut Butter Cup, Half-Baked, and Karmel Sutra. I will say, though, that nothing compares to homemade. For that, you can't beat basic vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Use real vanilla beans, high-quality chocolate, and fresh summer strawberries...yum. It's heaven.

LaSalle: Cherry Vanilla and Dulce La Leche
Sedutto: Cappuccino

I'm not a simple chocolate or vanilla type person but honestly my favorite ice cream flavors are; a lemon custard made by an independent deli in my hometown and, coming in a close second, a homemade vanilla custard with fresh peaches freshly picked off my aunt's west Texas "homestead".

Back in the day, High's Ice Cream out of Norfolk Va made an ice cream called Charlie Brown. Basically a chocolate ice cream with veins of peanut butter running through it, all salty and frozen.

It was fabulous. I haven't seen that product in the stores in some time and the reese cup style ice creams aren't even close.

So, I guess a really good butter pecan ice cream (SALTY pecans ;-) will do.

Mint Chocolate Chip! The kind with the green colored ice cream base.

Just found a new one that is AMAZING!!!
Hagen Daz Fleur de Sel Caramel.

Mango ice-cream (not sorbet). Whatever brand they might have at Whole Foods or TJ 's will work. If you are in the Boston area you can go to Rancatore's on Belmont Street in Belmont, they often have it. They also now have a location in Lexington and they are open 7 days a week from 10am-11pm! YUMMY!

There is nothing better that Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heathbar Crunch!

A great site for villas and food,

I would take him just one step to peach or whatever his favourite fruit might be as a launching point. If he likes chocolate sauce on his vanilla ice-cream, then maybe a fudge ripple. Just don't go overboard into a flavour with too much stuff in it, or you may be proving his point, so to speak. If he's really into chocolate try something like B&J's "Phish Food" which is just different types of chocolate worked together, or a basic chocolate-chocolate chip at the non-B&J local shop.

On the other hand, if he's a chocolate-or-vanilla kind of guy, that may be all he is. My brother is like that - a wonderful, fantastic, elaborate cook, but he favours French Vanilla ice-cream almost anywhere. Just because you're into variety and he's not doesn't mean it's wrong - vive la differerence, after all!

Try a raspberry gelato paired with a dark chocolate gelato...orgasmic!

I like a bunch but always go coffee if it's available. When I was little, I would have Friendly's coffee ice cream in any form, sundae, Fribble, you name it. It's one suburban thing I kind of miss.

Here in good old Wisconsin we eat Frozen Custard and we have the joy that is Kopp's to buy it from. They have wickedly unique flavors and I have recently fallen in love with their Pancakes and Syrup Custard. Maple flavored ice cream with pancakes pieces. Oh yum!

@ Martini, that must be a new flavor- never had it when I was a kid, but it sounds awesome. I always loved banana walnut chocolate chip- never liked B&J's Chunky Monkey once I discovered it. Honestly, I usually end up getting a scoop of plain chocolate-- once you move away you realize how amazing theirs is! I never get vanilla there, Leon's is the best vanilla for sure.

One of the country's best supermarket chains - Publix - has their own dairy plant and makes their own ice cream! They make a Tiramisu that is wonderful, and a peanut butter cup that is fantastic. If you are ever in the Southeast and can find a Publix, check out their in-house ice cream flavors.

I do like a good mint chocolate chip, or the peppermint candy that comes out limited to the Holidays.
I think it was Breyers that came out with a banana ice cream with fudge swirls and chocolate bits in it that was my immediate favorite, but it disappeared from the freezer never to be seen again in my town.(wah)

@finsbigfan.. i'm with you on the Haagen-Dazs Sticky Toffee Pudding, which unfortunately has been discontinued :(

it was the winner of the first Scoop flavor contest that aired on Food Network a couple years back, and it was amazing.. i love anything brown-sugary, caramely, warm spices.. hopefully they bring it back seasonally as a limited edition

The flavor is not as important as the texture and consistency. Visit an Indian restaurant or grocery and treat yourself to some cardamom-inflected kulfi. Once you try it, you'll never settle for Ben and/or Jerry again!

if you are in texas, anything by blue bell is wonderful.....my faves are key lime pie, mint choc chip and banana pudding. If you are in the Dallas area, try Milwalkee Joe's ice cream parlors..."Grandma Fred's New York Cheesecake" will change your life!

On second thought I wonder why you "need to convince my spouse that "fancy" flavored ice cream." Let your spouse stick to the basics. Nothing wrong with that.

Ditto on the pp who mentioned Publix ice cream. It's awesome! I recently made butterscotch ice cream. In fact. I'm going to finish it off RIGHT NOW.

Silver Moon's Praline Irish Creme .... out of this world and favorite sorbet is Silver Moon's Mango Mimosa, so delicious.