Chasing Fall in Vermont: Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour

Not too sure about you, but one of my favourite ice cream is definitely Ben & Jerry's! It was my comfort food at one of the lowest point in my life. Until now, its still my go-to dessert after a dreadful day. I think I love it so much, I am almost a brand evangelist. HA-HA.

Thus, one of the "must go" places in Vermont for me was definitely the B&J factory, which comes with a 30 minute tour. The B&J factory is situated in Waterbury, Vermont, pretty hard to get to without any form of public transport. In fact, anywhere outside of Burlington is hard to get to without a car.

Here's how the outside of the factory looks like.

 

As it was rainy and cold (the winds were sooo strong), we quickly entered the compound and here's the welcome counter!

A ticket to the factory tour costs US$4. It includes a video which introduces the history of the company, a quick tour of the ice-cream making process and a complementary scoop of B&J ice-cream in the FlavoRoom!

And this marks the start of the tour! LETS GO!

Room showing video of B&J's history

FlavoRoom (where you get your ice cream YAY!)

This is the flavour of the day. Vanilla bean ice cream with salty caramel swirl and fudge covered in POTATO CHIPS! yeah you've got that right, and it really tastes quite awesome

After exiting the FlavoRoom, you'll walk down the B&J's Walk of Fame. Here are the top 10 flavours. Mine's New York Super Fudge Chunk at #6. What's yours?

Other than the tour, the B&J factory also boasts a flavour graveyard, where they commemorate all their "dead" flavours, a playground and a picnic area. Do check those out as well!

picnic at barrage

my 1st post exams activity- picnic@barrage!

it was an awesome, yet extremely warm day out at the barrage. even though we went at 430pm (nearer to when the sun is setting), it was still extremely sunny /: can really feel my burnt cheekbones now! hahaha.

nic was the chef of the day and prepared quite a lot of good food :D yay! no pictures of the food sorry cause i was in a terrible position  to take any nice pictures. so anyway, here are just some pictures of the people i picnic-ed with (:

姐妹

haha we even had picnic drinks, like martini hehee! but my sensitive stomach really cant take the drinks at all -.-

happy picnic-ing. though it left us extremely tired at the end of the day, but it was still pretty fun! 

so people, seize the (extremely) sunny weather and head out for a picnic with your loved ones/ friends. FLY KITE TOO CAUSE ITS JUST FUN :D

pho's 21st + tp design show

Finally, Phoebe has officially graduated from TP design school (: We met a few days ago to visit her booth at the TP Design Show at Vivocity, as well as hold a super duper early 21st birthday celebration for the dear girl (:

Gonna spend some time today to introduce her works for the FYP (Final Year Project). If you do like her works, please contact her with the information provided later okay! Her FYP's style is very "her". So if you like it, I believe she can produce even more satisfying works for you (:

This is phoebe at her booth! (why look so awkard?!) hahaha.

These are just some of the collaterals she came up with. A collection of 3 books to help you "uplift your life" (: 

And here are just a few more excerpts! All these excerpts are taken off www.cargocollective.com/phoebelow Do visit her webpage for her other works!

So.. upon looking at her illustrations, do you feel "uplift-ed"?? heh! but these illustrations are so pretty, aren't they? I'm definitely gonna take some time off to learn all these from the photoshop-pros. making pretty things makes you feel pretty too, you know? (:

Then, we had dinner at Earl's Swensons. Yay for free flow salad buffet!

Because pho had booth duty, she left before the dinner ended, which bought us some time to prepare her birthday tart, from fruit paradise, and her present (:

And here's phoebe (looking slightly awkward again!) with her birthday tart. its about 2 weeks before her actual birthday, but oh well, better early than late right! especially when we are all busy during her birthday period.

happy bananas~ dont know why but this picture just makes me feel so happy (: favourite friends for a long long time already!

gonna end off with a group photo! 

once again, if you like phoebe's works and wish to contact her, her contact details are as follows:

Celebratory Dinner @ Da Paolo Pizza Bar

Last friday was the day the Sparkling Fireworks (yes, that's the name of my project group.  Don't judge) had our marketing presentation. The idea was to have it like "The Noose" and we had a ball of a time preparing for it! Just look at this!! hahaha!

Anyway, we planned for a celebratory dinner over at Da Paolo Pizza Bar, located within Chip Bee Garden at Holland Village, thanks to Angel's recommendation. She was raving about the truffle pizza so much that we knew we had to try it! Anyway, click here to check out their facebook page (:

We chose an alfresco seating as the weather was pretty good. The interior furnishing was simply gorgeous. Of fur ceilings and wine cellar walls, Da Paolo offered a classy environment, simply great for a Friday night out with friends (: Take a look at the pictures and you will understand. Probably what I liked most about the place was the lack of crowd (and noise). We had a great time chillaxing and talking, without having to scream across the table, unlike some popular restaurants.

The food were simply delicious! Especially the mushroom dishes! Please please order the Portobello mushroom salad as well as the truffle pizza. They are just yum-tums!

So here's the Portobello mushroom salad, served with rockets and topped with capsicum (i think! didn't get to eat it), feta cheese and balsamic vinegar. The mushroom at the bottom was stuffed with tomato, then grilled. The combination of the taste of tomato with Portobello mushroom is simply heavenly. All the others were so in love with this dish as well! Definitely worth trying!

Next up, we had some cold cuts- parma ham! (: Just look at how thinly cut these ham slices are! They tasted really yummy, especially with the baguette slices (which was slightly stiff by the time I got to eat it).

And, here we have the truffle pizza! The mushrooms smelt and tasted really good! The combination of mushrooms and cheese was lovely! Another of my favourite dish! Please please order this when you visit Da Paolo.

Lastly, we had some smoked salmon with spinach pizza. The smoked salmon was delicious on its own, but somehow I thought that the taste didn't blend quite well with the cheese and the spinach. But well, it could also be that I had to many cheesy dishes by then, it was quite difficult to properly taste this. Not a must-try for me!

We also had buffalo wings for dinner, but I didn't eat any (as I was so full already) and by then it was kind of dark to shoot any photographs, so no reviews for me! A meal like this came up to $20/head (after GST and service charge) for 6 people! Pretty worth it huh!a

Ok! This marks the end of my post! If you do visit Da Paolo's Pizza Bar sometime, tell me what's good and what's not! I will definitely pop by one day after school for another round (:

How to get there

Drop at Holland Village MRT along the Circle Line and exit at the 1st exit you see within the train station. You will find yourself at the back of Chip Bee Gardens. Just walk through the car park and into the small lane. Walk uphill along the stretch of restaurants and about 2 mins later, you will see Da Paolo Pizza Bar.