B&J's

Monday night I went over to the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop in Squirrel Hill with Adam and Leslie. This one shares a storefront with the Bagel Factory, which was closed, but had a huge tray full of wrapped up pastries. Leslie, being a tad more curious than myself, asked the man behind the counter if they were giving them away. After all, they were next to a trash bag full of bagels and it looked like they were all going to get tossed (Justin would have grabbed all of these in a blink of an eye). The man told her yes, we could have some, and our eyes lit up. Since I was traveling to Erie for work the following morning, I knew these pastries would become a key part of my trip, so I grabbed a blueberry scone and a frosted cinnamon roll (for the record, both were delicious).

Now for Ben & Jerry's... I ordered a Jamaican Me Bananas smoothie for $5. I love going to ice cream shops, but I rarely get just a simple bowl or cone of ice cream. Usually when I eat more than a small scoop or two of ice cream, I feel really tired. So instead I tend to go for the smoothies or milkshakes. They generally cost more, but getting fresh fruit, ice cream, yogurt, milk, etc. all blended together into cup is worth it to me. Less mess, easier to consume, easier to carry around. Unfortunately on this occasion, they were out of bananas so the man behind the counter offered to substitute Bananas on the Rum ice cream instead. While fresh bananas would have been perfect, this still ended up being a damn good smoothie. It was rather heavy on the pineapple, which got to be a little too much near the end, but overall I definitely recommend this smoothie. I am all about value, and for $5 you get a lot of smoothie in this one.

The other funny thing we noticed at the shop was that they sold bags of potato pancake "chips". Curiously, I picked up the bag and read the motto - "thou shall snack" - and had a good laugh with Leslie and Adam. Such a good motto, in fact, that I decided to steal it...