Shield's Date Gardens

A date garden, why can't I have one in my backyard? I would spend all summer snacking on sticky, toffee-like, caramel-y dates all day and everyday. -drools- No joke, residents of Palm Springs/Palm Desert/La Quinta/Indo etc have date trees in their yards and date trees lining the streets and parks. Not. Fair.

Shield's Date Gardens, really, don't miss it!

Right after I took this photo, I immediately ran to the air-conditioned car. That is a forced smile you see, partially at least. The only genuine-ity coming from the fact I bought a bunch of dates.

Just around the corner from our hotel in La Quinta, California, lies the largest date retail store in Palm Springs. -insert angelic voices here- Also the more popular date garden compared to Oasis Date Gardens. Aka the highlight of my side trip number two. This massive sign with a medieval soldier pointing to the store can be seen from a mile away, I think.

If Peanut Crumpet got to go to taunt me with Coconut Glen's then I get payback with the date capital of the world. Mwahahaha!

Size Comparison

What I love about Shield's Date Garden is being able to sample every single possibly variety of date, maybe twice, before deciding on which boxes to purchase and haul home (by hand carry!) 12+ kinds of dates can kind of be overwhelming for a date newbie like me. Nomnomnomnom, Coconut Crumpet just chows down enough dates to keep a sugar rush going for the next three days. Sugar makes you fat? Not of my concern at the moment. -keeps eating more dates-

Khadrawi Dates from Shield's Date Gardens

Oasis Date Gardens

My only goal in Palm Springs was to visit a date garden. Or maybe two.

With only one full day to spend in the Palm Springs-ish area, we wanted to make the most out of it. I knew I wanted to visit Shield's Date Garden, which was pretty much around the corner from our awesome hotel (Homewood Suites in La Quinta!), but my dad found a brochure for Oasis Date Gardens a little further away in Thermal. So we went there first.

Date Shake

I've heard rave reviews about the date shakes at both Oasis Date Gardens and Shields Date Gardens. The name 'date shake' made me think it was a date-flavoured milk shake. But it's not. Soft serve ice cream blended with date crystals. We got this half-cup size for free because we had a coupon for a free date shake with a purchase of like $10. Contrary to all the rave reviews, I didn't find this date shake anything close to amazing. It was good ice cream, but it didn't deliver with the date flavour. Vanilla soft soft ice cream is what I tasted. The full-size version of this is really large, an stuffed cup full of date shake for around $4. However this sample size was more than enough for the four of us because it wasn't that exciting. After trying Oasis' date shake, I was no longer interested in Shield's version as I believe it's the same thing.

Medjool Dates from Oasis Date Gardens

The store portion of Oasis Date Gardens is pretty small. And there were no other customers when we arrived at 10am, which made it rather awkward to browse around. The shelves were a bit empty and the gift sets looked like they had been sitting there for a while. (I'm just guessing by the slightly drier-looking appearance of the medjool dates) We tried a few samples, and bought a pound of medjool dates from the bulk area. We just wanted to buy something, try a date shake, and get out of there. 

I actually didn't have much expectation for these medjools, because who knows how long they've been there? However, I am extremely impressed with these. Perhaps their bulk and wholesale boxes sell a lot quicker than the gift boxes. These medjools are meaty, moist, and super caramel-y. I would describe them as nature's caramels. In fact, these are better than caramels! I crave them every single day.

So, would is it worth going to Oasis Date Gardens? Hmm... Since Shield's is closer and they have medjools just as juicy and caramelly, I'd say it isn't necessary to drive the extra distance. 

And a tip for those that often use a GPS to navigate around, Grapefruit Blvd is actually Highway 111. Our GPS didn't have Grapefruit Blvd as a choice so we looked at a physical map and saw Highway 111 ends and then turns into Grapefruit Blvd. Why don't we get cool street names like that in Vancouver? I wanna live on Blackberry Street or Blueberry Lane...

Oasis Date Garden
59-111 Grapefruit Blvd, Thermal CA 

Reviews on Yelp

Love from Coconut Crumpet's Corner ♡