Thursday, May 6, 2010

New England Ice Cream Trip(I) -Massachusetts

Ice cream is exquisite.  What a pity it isn't illegal.  ~Voltaire

In eating  ice cream ,  we meet God, and lose God, eat God, as it were, become God( as in 'You are what you eat') and lose God(as in 'You can't eat your cake and have it too')


Coordinator
Yiwen Gao
Judge committee
Hongmin Fan,
Yiman Hou,
Yuqian Li,
Creence Lin,
Wanyu Wang
,Sheng You,
Yue Zhang

Time
05/02/2010 11:00am-9:00pm
( including a lunch@Top Garden - Tewksbury, MA)

Mission
As the first trip of the significant Ice cream tasting trip, we only stopped by the stores in Massachusetts. Due to the time limitation, there are still some famous stores that we missed out,  we will try to stop by in the future trip. For each store, the candidate flavors we pick up are: vanilla flavors, chocolate flavors, fruit flavors, nut flavors and featured flavors. After tasting, the judger graded the ice cream from 1-5(5 is the highest).

Confession
Our judger tried to grade equitably and objectively, but it's difficult not to involve individual preferences, for example, most of the judger don't like the pistachio flavors, which results in the overall low grading of pistachio ice cream. And since the judgers all prefer Asian flavors, it's not surprised to see the Green Tea flavor is extremely popular, so does Adzuki bean (red bean). So I hope you are reviewing our report with awareness of those points.

View Larger Map
Ice cream Stores Profiles:

Report( with grades)
Vanilla:       Vanilla Cherry chip    (3.7)
                   Big , plentiful of cherries, with chocolate chip
Chocolate:  Chocolate Almond    (2.2)
                   Very disappointing ( Maybe I should not have it as the candidate flavor)
Fruit:          Vanilla Cherry           (3.7)
Nut:             Pistachio                   (2)
                    Very disappointing, very few pistachio
Featured:     Kahlua Crunch         (4.2)
                     Coffee flavor with fudge swirl, chocolate crispy(or something) , very good 

** we didn't go to the Westford store, which is famous with those mini golf,  the Carlisle store is not facilitated well, but with tables






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Vanilla:       Vanilla Cherry                  (3.3)
                    not very pleasant, fake cherry, with pink color(seems artificial) vanilla ice cream
Chocolate:  Death  by Chocolate         (4)
                    This is really chocolate ice cream, rich, very good
Fruit:          Vanilla Cherry
Nut:             Pistachio                          (3.1)    
              loads of pistachio, it claims itself as the green color of ice cream is naturally from pistachio, but  most of the judges are not fans of pistachio ice cream :(
Featured:    Reversed Chocolate chips (3.8)
                    this white chocolate chip with chocolate ice cream

** we visited the Reading store in the Jordan furniture, got to watch some musical fountain show :))
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Christina(Cambridge, MA)




Vanilla:      Vanilla Bean                (3.5)
                    Rich, but no surprise
Chocolate:  Mexican  Chocolate    (3.4)
                   with cinnamon that brings in the spiciness, I am a Mexican chocolate fan( Spicy!), I love it, but if  you are not into that, you probably feel weird 
Fruit:          Mango                        (4.5)
                 Very creamy,  Mangony , which is not created by cream, but taste like lots of mango puree,  I can't believe it's a fruit ice cream, but it's definitely ice cream but not sorbet  
Nut:            
Featured:    Green Tea                   (4.2)
                    We all love it, not very sweet, characteristically Asian ice cream 
                    Burnt Sugar                 (3.6)
                    Rich, intense, but only if you like burnt sugar 
                    Adzuki Bean               (4.4)
             this one got raved right away, since I actually only got one spoon of it, I subconsciously feel it is the best :-|
                    Gingersnap Mollassa   (3.8)
                    I love Ginger ice cream and this one is absolutely cold gingersnap mollassa cookie in the form of ice cream. But not all of our judger loves gingersnap, so it doesn't hit a very high score

** the staffs are not very friendly, which is kinda expected, but the long waiting line is always there
      a folk waiting in the line also recommended carrot ice cream to us
*   expensive than all the other stores
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Vanilla:       
Chocolate:  Coconut Chocolate Almond   (4.5)
                this one could be the super star of that day, it 's actually not chocolate ice cream but vanilla ice cream with  mini chocolate chip, coconut, and almond, everything is balanced so well there, everyone loves it!
Fruit:          Black Raspberries   (3.3)
                   not very impressive
                   Orange pineapple    (4)
                   our girls loved it, very fresh
Nut:            Maple Walnut          (4)
                 this is the best maple flavor ice cream I have ever had so far, the maple flavor is so intense, love it!
Featured:   Coffee Fudge           (4.2)
                    very coffeey, bitter coffee balanced well with sweet fudge
* After traveling so many stores, eating so much ice cream , we all kinda were surprised we loved this place so much(right after Christina!)  but overall, ice cream there is  sweeter than in Christina, but I don't rule out the factor that we ordered some Asian flavors in Christina. 
**You can also see cows there, but not smell good. 
***The lines are all long, no tables that you can sit down and enjoy your ice cream though


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Vanilla:        
Chocolate:  Bittersweet Chocolate   (3.4)
                    sweeter than 'death by chocolate' in Richardson
Fruit:          Strawberries                  (3.4)
                    no surprise
Nut:            Hazelnut                        (3.7)
                   a little bit subtle
Featured:   Espresso                         (4.2)
                   this is the best coffee ice cream I have ever had
But in this place, the super surprise is: 

Chocolate chop Cookie cone, Pretzel cone!!
Unfortunately the  cookie cone were sold out
Pretzel cone was unexpectedly good to be served with ice cream

Do we look fatter than in the first picture??
(this is the last stop-)


Prize

Best Chocolate Ice cream
Coconut Chocolate Almond from Peaceful Meadow
( this doesn't count actually, it's not chocolate ice cream)
Death by Chocolate from Richardson

Best Fruit Ice cream
Mango from Christina 

Best Nut Ice cream
Maple Walnut from Peaceful Meadow 

Best Coffee Ice cream
Coffee Fudge from Peaceful Meadow 





Espresso t from Racantore

Best Special Flavor Ice cream 
Adzuki Bean(Red Bean) from Christina

Best Ice Cream store in this trip
Peaceful Meadow (4)
Christina(3.9)






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Thanks to
all the committee members

SPECIAL THANKS TO
Hongmin Fan
(One of the driver,
the only guy in the team)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brain storm Time
How to select candidate flavor to make sure they are characteristic , best representative?
How to grade ice cream with involving minimum personal preference?
what should be the standards to represent the best ice cream?
......................................

"I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container. "
Thanks god, we have grown up and you do too
I hope you can help me think about those questions when you are in bed and eating ice cream straight out of the  container.

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