We New Yorkers know from the lighting district, the flower district, the garment district. But an ice cream district? For that you have to leave the city and head to Martha’s Vineyard. The island off Cape Cod in Massachusetts is famous as a summer vacation destination for President Clinton, but it also just may be home to the country’s densest concentration of ice cream shops. Within the area of about one city block in the town of Oak Bluffs, there are no less than five separate stores whose main business is selling ice cream. None is a big chain outlet such as Dairy Queen, Häagen-Dazs, or Ben & Jerry’s. On the theory that competition brings improved quality, I sampled all of them. Dockside Ice Cream, as its name suggests, is closest to the dock where one can catch a ferry back to the mainland. For $3.10 including tax for the smallest size scoop, the store serves up a hefty portion of very good ice cream. The chocolate chips in the chocolate chip ice cream I ordered were large, and the vanilla ice cream they were in had a smooth, creamy texture. The stand is located in Dockside Marketplace (on the Circuit Avenue Extension), which houses a number of other shops, but has no seats. Flavors are listed in marker on a corporate-style whiteboard.

Three of the ice cream shops are situated on Oak Bluffs’ main drag, Circuit Avenue.

Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium, (20A Circuit Ave., 508-696-0008), true to its name, sells chocolate as well as ice cream. I had high hopes for this shop, being familiar with its branch on the mainland in Falmouth (other locations are in Northampton, Mass., and Bar Harbor, Maine). The smallest portion here costs $3.50 including tax, presumably enough to cover the expense of ingredients such as the “real lobster pieces” that are billed as being included in the lobster-flavored ice cream. The chocolate chips in the chocolate chip ice cream here were bigger than at Dockside, but they were fewer and farther between. A hot-fudge sundae, $5.15 including tax for a small, was made with canned whipped cream and hot fudge that tasted more like chocolate syrup than hot fudge. The chocolate syrup taste extended to the mud pie ice cream in the sundae; the coffee ice cream with Oreo cookies mixed in was overpowered by the chocolate swirl running through the flavor. One can dine on the shop’s porch, which has wooden benches overlooking the bustling Circuit Avenue sidewalk.

Carousel Ice Cream Factory (15 Circuit Ave., 508-693-7582) is across the street from Ben and Bill’s. The price for the smallest size cup here is $3.10 including tax, and while the ice cream was excellent, the chocolate chips in the chocolate-chip ice cream I ordered were too small and too skimpily distributed. The shop has some tables and chairs inside, where one can sit and admire the merry-go-round horse whose bridle is decorated with hand-carved wooden ice cream cones.

Mad Martha’s Homemade Ice Cream, (12 Circuit Ave., 508-693-9151) had the biggest crowds. It also has branches in the Martha’s Vineyard towns of Vineyard Haven and Edgartown. The chocolate chips here had good size, taste, and frequency, and were lodged in ice cream with a smooth texture but an undistinguished taste. Unfortunately, the small hot-fudge sundae I ordered, like the one at Ben and Bill’s, came with whipped cream from a Cabot’s can, and not much of it, at that. It’s apparently too much to ask for homemade whipped cream to go with your homemade ice cream in Oak Bluffs, though top-notch ice cream purveyors off the island, from New York’s own Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory in DUMBO to Herrell’s in Harvard Square, whip their own cream. Worse, the Mad Martha’s sundae, which cost $5 including tax, was topped with a maraschino cherry that dripped FD&C red dye of an undetermined number all over my ice cream and the canned whipped cream.

Vineyard’s Best Ice Cream, (12 Kennebec Ave. at Lake Ave., 508-696-0166) is the most open and unapologetic about serving ice cream from off-island. While Mad Martha’s and Ben and Bill’s claim their ice cream is “homemade,” Vineyard’s Best advertises that its ice cream comes from Richardson’s Ice Cream in Middleton, Mass. The atmosphere here leaves much to be desired. The music is too loud, and the store also sells bagels. I had to ask the scooper twice for what I wanted after he forgot or didn’t understand my order the first time. But, true to the store’s name, in my opinion, it has Oak Bluffs’s best ice cream, with big chips mixed evenly into fresh-tasting ice cream with not-too-sweet hot fudge. A small sundae cost $5.51 including tax. Even here, however, the whipped cream came from a Cabot’s can.

It may take a sixth store to bring icecream perfection to this ice cream district. It may be that Martha’s Vineyard’s beaches are so pleasant that homemade whipped cream isn’t even necessary — it would be too much. Maybe the ice cream makers got distracted by the crashing waves. In the meantime, for true ice cream lovers, the fun isn’t necessarily in finding the ideal sundae or cone, but in the search.