Fall 2004 Edition          

Fair Lawn's Ice Cream   By Steven Weiss (Fair Lawn High School sophomore)   Ice cream is one of the most delicious desserts in our American culture.  Fair Lawn is lucky to have four wonderful ice cream places that offer us such a different variety. There has always been one question, which one is the best?  I have compared them all based on taste, selection, location & surroundings, and price.    Taste  I feel the most important thing with ice cream is the taste. Living in Fair Lawn for over fifteen years, I have had my share of ice creams, including:   Häagen-Dazs, Carvel, Friendly's, and TCBY.    In my opinion the best tasting ice cream is Häagen-Dazs. Their ice cream is very rich and delicious. The one draw back:  it is the worst for your waist line.      Taste (on a scale of the 10) Häagen-Dazs 9.5 Carvel  9 Friendly's 8.5 TCBY 8   What has to be remembered is that TCBY has frozen yogurt, which makes it healthier then the three.   Selection  The great thing is all four of the places have at least twenty flavors. Besides the regular ice cream they have specialty ice creams and sundaes.    1st Place:  Häagen-Dazs with 35 flavors.  2nd Place: TCBY with 27.  3rd Place:  Carvel with 25. 4th Place: Friendly's with 20.    Friendly's has the most sundaes and the most specialty ice creams.   Location and Surroundings  The location and surroundings are much different for each of these four.    Carvel finishes last here.  Even though they have benches outside, you cannot sit in the place.     Third place is TCBY; even though you can sit down and it has nice benches, the inside is not as nice. All the seats are crammed and when its crowded there is not much room. Being on Route 4 is a negative since it is always noisy.   Häagen-Dazs is second:  the inside is very nice and clean, and it is in a nice area.    The winner here is Friendly's. You really cannot compare it, since it is also a restaurant, besides an ice cream parlor. The seating area is much nicer and bigger then the other three places.   Prices  Unfortunately with everything there comes a price.      Small Cup Medium Cup Large Häagen-Dazs $1.98 $3.21 $3.82 TCBY $2.79 $3.39 $3.89 Friendly's $1.99 (1 scoop) $2.69 (2 scoops)   Carvel $1.80 $2.90 $3.30   The best priced place is Carvel.  All these prices do not include tax.   Final Analysis After putting all four categories together, I have found two winners.   Best take-out ice cream:  Carvel Carvel has the second best tasting ice cream, and the best value for the money.    Best place to eat ice cream: Friendly's The ice cream is good and the seating area is the nicest.