Gari-Gari Kun: Rich Salt Chinsuko Cookie Popsicle

 Gari-Gari Kun has come out with another interesting flavour. This ice cream popsicle actually a cross between ice cream and kakigori (shaved ice dessert). Chinsuko is a cookie coming from Okinawa, made from just flour, sugar and lard. Sometimes salt is added for accent and is called Shio Chinsuko. This Gari-Gari Kun uses chunks of shio chinsuko and there is a hint of caramel in the ice cream. It might seem a bit similar to cookie dough ice cream, but less creamy since it is more like kakigori.

Haagen Dazs: Rich Pumpkin

This one is an autumn/winter limited edition flavour. Because I'm used to pumpkin flavoured things tasting like pumpkin spice, I don't know if this one really screams pumpkin to me. This ice cream actually uses kabocha which is about the size of, and is eaten more like squash in Japan. This ice cream has swirls of kabocha puree throughout it which add just a hint of extra sweetness and if you really think about it, squash flavour. However I think perphaps if I ate it with my eyes closed it might just pass as plain ice cream.

Haagen Daaz: Sunda Mochi

Zunda mochi is mochi that is covered in a sweet edamame bean paste. The way that I've mostly seen it done is with a mochi that is made from lightly pounding the mochi rice, leaving parts of the grains intact such as in ohagi (where the mochi is covered with a red bean paste). It can be done with regular mochi as well though. Haagen Dazs has taken the components of zunda mochi to make it an ice cream flavour.

Upon opening the small cup, you see a blob of mochi with a zunda paste topping covering it. This ice cream is layered with the mochi on top, the ice cream underneath with thin layers of zunda paste running through it as well. The mochi was chewy and had a flavour much like real mochi except sweeter and melts in the mouth after the first few bites. The milky ice cream underneath was sweet and as it melts away, the flavour of the edamame then becomes prevalent. They must have experimented many times to get the mochi just right, so that it doesn't become hard when frozen but isn't too soft that it doesn't feel like mochi. They got it just right and it really does work well with ice cream.

Super Cup Sweets: Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream

A couple of years ago this brand came out with a slightly different type of ice cream, flavours of cakes and pies turned into the cold treat. When they first became popular it was with this strawberry shortcake flavour.

The bottom layer tastes a bit like there's coconut in it to me, or like a thin biscuit covered in sugar that I remember often eating as a child but don't remember the name of it. The middle layer is plain ice cream, perhaps to look like whipped cream and between the two layers is cookie, with the texture of a not so flakey pie crust and the flavour of a butter cookie. The top layer is a strawberry flavoured frozen compote. For me, it is a bit too thick and concentrated; it seems to overpower all the other layers when eaten together.

Gari-Gari Kun: Raisin Butter Sandwich Flavoured Popsicle

I'm a sucker for rum raisin and raisin butter anything, so when I saw this seasonal flavour in a Gari-Gari Kun popsicle I just had to try it! If you haven't read my first post about this ice cream popsicle, you can read about what makes it so special here.

After the first bite, the flavour of rum immediately comes out, it's quite a strong aroma. Then I got an almost butterscotch-like flavour which I assume was to emulate the butter. And lastly the sweetness from the raisins left a nice aftertaste, it was was actually packed with more raisins than I thought would be there! The bits of butter cookie in it gave it more of a nuttiness to it rather than buttery flavour, but it was quite nice.

Gari-Gari Kun: A Tamagoyaki Egg Flavoured Popsicle?

Gari-Gari Kun is a popular popsicle in Japan. It's not like the usual popsicle that has the same icey consistency throughout, rather it's a combination of 2 favourite summertime sweets, ice cream and kakigori (crushed ice). Sounds like it would be a crunchy thing to chew on, but it actually is easy to bite into and melts in your mouth immediately like ice cream. The outer layer is a non-dairy ice cream, and the inside is all crushed ice. One of the most interesting things about Gari-Gari Kun is the flavours it comes up with. While they do have their best sellers which you will see in the stores during the summer months, the company comes out with limited time flavours that match the season.
One flavour that caught my eye this season is the tamagoyaki. If you're unfamiliar with that, think of the egg that comes as a sushi topping wrapped in seaweed, that sweet egg is tamagoyaki; an rolled egg omlette seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and sweetened with mirin.

So how was this egg-flavoured popsicle?

It was fairly sweet like a Kansai style tamagoyaki, the soy sauce bringing out the sweetness.  There were bits of egg actually in it that felt a bit chewy at first and then when all else melts, you have bits of egg that feel and taste like just that! Overall I'd say it was almost like a pudding made with plenty of eggs, but with the texture of crushed ice that melts as it hits the tongue. I guess it works!

Esseru Super Cup Chocolate Mint Craft Ice Cream

My chocolate mint flavoured ice cream craving continues...
This one I found at my local grocery store freezer section. I found this one to be a little less minty and a bit sweeter than the previously tried "Gisshiri Mint Chocolate". Even though the packaging says there are 1.5x the amount of chocolate in this ice cream, there seemed to be less chocolate compared to the "Gisshiri", but gave it the same crunchy texture.

Gisshiri Manzoku Choco-minto: Convenience Store Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

Lately I've had a craving for ice cream, particularly the sweet, but refreshing flavour of mint chocolate. Usually this flavour is found in to be in season at convenience stores around late autumn. You'll find not only mint chocolate ice cream, but also chocolates and other sweets made with this universal flavour.

Gisshiri Manzoku Choco-minto is one brand I found at Family Mart. Gisshiri, meaning packed, and manzoku, meaning satisfied, you can tell by the name that they try to fit as much chocolate in their ice cream as they can without loosing its ice cream feel. The little bits of crushed chocolate dispersed throughout the creaminess, make the texture have little crunch and ensures uniformity in every bite. It was a good balance of minty and sweet, leaving a refreshing aftertaste and coolness in the throat. I didn't get a sense of there being more chocolate than a conventional mint chocolate ice cream, but overall a nice mint chocolate.

"Freshly Milked" Ice Cream at the Grocery Store

I recently tried an ice cream that caught my eye in the freezer section of the grocery store. It was called Bokujou Shibori, or "farm-milked". On the package it says that the ice cream is made withing 3 days of being milked from the cow.

Kept fresh, a package inside a package!

 I'm not sure if I could actually tell the difference from any other ice cream, but perhaps it felt creamier. The hojicha (roasted green tea) flavour was subtle and did not overpower the milkiness. Swirling the plain and tea flavour also helps to get bites of intense milk flavour. If you're a milk lover, perhaps this is the ice cream for you!

Ice Manju: A Truly Japanese Style Ice Cream

The ice here is short for ice cream, and manju is the name of a Japanese confectionary. Manju is normally a sticky rice cake that is filled with a sweet red bean paste. If you replace the rice cake with ice cream, you have Aisu (ice) Manju. To make it easier to eat, it is all on a stick like an ice cream bar. The company plays around with different flavours of ice cream, but the bar always contains red bean paste. Examples of other flavours include hojicha (roasted green tea), matcha, and strawberry, all things that would go well with the anko (red bean paste).

All aisu manju have a red bean paste filling

Recently I've tried the standard vanilla flavour. The ice cream is soft and melts quickly so on a hot day you'll have to eat it quickly (even when in the freezer the ice cream is soft enough to take a bite out of). The anko is sweeter than real manju but that is probably so that it can stand up to the vanilla ice cream. Being a fan of red bean paste, I was pleasantly surprised by how much was inside the ice cream! It is a given that this combination would be tasty, as you can often find cold zenzai (sweet red bean soup) topped with ice cream, or Japanese style parfaits with ice cream and anko, but the great thing here is that you just have to open up the package and eat!

Vanilla flavour

Look at all that anko in there!

Japan's Ice Cream Flavours Are the Best

I've always thought of Haagen Dazs as a high-end brand of ice cream. They had all types of flavours in Canada such as praline pecan, caramel, cookie dough, Belgian chocolate, mint chocolate chip, all very common flavours found at the grocery or ice cream stores. So when I came to Japan I was surprised to see the multitude of flavours available. You can of course find the most popular, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and matcha at any time, but Haagen Dazs puts out seasonal flavours that are unlike those I've ever seen before. Not only that, in Japan they come in cute little personal sized cups containing approximately 110ml or 250 calories, so there's no chance of guilty overeating.

Today I'll share with you two flavours I recently tried:

1. Black Tea Latte
If you've heard of Royal Milk Tea in Japan, you'll know what I mean when I say this ice cream is like that (think black tea with lots of milk and sugar). It does however seem to have a higher depth of tea flavour compared to royal milk tea though. This ice cream combines two different types of tea, assam and dimbula. They aren't mixed all together, rather each individual flavour of ice cream is swirled into the cup. The maltiness of the assam is great in this blend of tea ice cream.

You can see that there are two different teas in here

2. Cherry Custard Pie

This one is an interesting because it tastes like what it should by looking at the picture on the container. There are actually pieces of pie "crust" in this ice cream, however it's not the pie crust that you are probably familiar with. In Japan when they say pie, they usually refer to a light and flaky pastry similar to the French palmier cookie. It goes well with the creamy ice cream and swirl of cherry puree sauce. 

Both of these flavours are seasonal (you can tell by the characters 期間限定, which means limited). I will try to try and the interesting new flavours as they come out and update them on the labeled 'Ice Cream Series' in this blog!