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Ice Cream

Updated: 8/11/05

While in Japan, I've been eating lots of ice cream. In hot, humid weather, it tastes really good. Now that's it's fall, I find it still tastes really good. Ice cream has been a personal theme of mine. People think "Alex.... ice cream". I tell people I'm on a special diet that dictates that I eat exactly four a day - no more, no less. Consequently, when somebody sees me eating ice cream in the office, they often ask me how many I've had so far. Anyway, I decided to take pictures of all of the ice cream and dedicate a page to it. As of 8/11/2004, this page contained 168 photographs of ice cream.

Inside my freezer
Fruity
Haagen Dazs
Haagen Dazs Cafe in the Shinsaibashi neighborhood of Osaka
Green tea
Chocolate covered
Rice flour (mochi)
Waffle
Sweet red bean (azuki)
Homemade ice cream
Ice cream eaten in other parts of Asia
Other

Also, be sure not to miss the page about the Ice Cream Expo in Osaka in the summer of 2005. It contains another 113 photographs of exotic flavors of Japanese ice cream including Asian pear, crab, french pear, natto (fermented soy beans), sudachi (tiny lime-like fruit), soy sauce, champagne rose, and beef tongue ice cream.

Inside my freezer

The inside of my freezer

Fruity

Banana milk popsicle.

Mikan (Japanese orange) popsicle with big chunks of mikan inside.

Mikan popsicle ready for action. I held it up to the window so you could see the chunks of orange inside.

Jumbo watermelon popsicle with semi-hard chocolates for seeds.

Jumbo watermelon popsicle ready for action.

Mango and coconut ice cream.

A box of watermelon and honeydew melon popsicles.

This watermelon popsicle has little chunks of slightly crunchy chocolate in place of watermelon seeds.

This honeydew melon popsicle has chunks of slighly crunchy white chocolate in place of seeds.

Mango puree popsicles

A box of fruit popsicles including the mango puree popsicles

Melon ice cream cup

Strawberry slush (sweet ice).

Fruit juice bar. The package says it's 70% juice.

Pineapple fruit popsicle with lots of chunks of pineapple

Haagen Dazs Cafe in the Shinsaibashi neighborhood of Osaka

Haagen Dazs - a poster from the Haagen Dazs shop in Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Haagen Dazs - a page from the menu at the Haagen Dazs shop in Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Haagen Dazs - caramel custard sundae at the Haagen Dazs shop in Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Haagen Dazs - banana caramel sundae at the Haagen Dazs shop in Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Haagen Dazs - sundae with custard, belgian chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, and a pastry at the Haagen Dazs shop in Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Haagen Dazs - sundae with strawberries, chocolate, custard, and stuff at the Haagen Dazs shop in Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Haagen Dazs - vanilla ice cream with a side of espresso which you pour over the ice cream yourself. Akemi likes this.

Haagen Dazs - pouring the espresso over your vanilla ice cream.

Haagen Dazs - strawberry, custard, and ice cream in a sundae.

Haagen Dazs - chai ice cream with a danish, whipped cream, and berry sauce. Usually this comes with vanilla, but Akemi and her friend wanted the chai ice cream instead.

Haagen Dazs - caramel, banana sundae.

Haagen Dazs - various sundaes eaten with my mom and Akemi.

Haagen Dazs

Haagen Dazs - espresso, like coffee ice cream but a lot stronger.

Haagen Dazs - chai flavor. I had this at the scoop shop in Kobe.

Haagen Dazs - rich milk, tastes like sweetened condensed milk.

Haagen Dazs - custard pudding, tastes just like my mom's baked custard pudding, with just a hit of bitterness, absolutely delicious.

Haagen Dazs - macadamia chocolate cake ice cream bar

Haagen Dazs - caramel macchiato parfait, note that parfaits are a very popular desert in Japan.

Haagen Dazs - honey and chocolate ice cream sandwich, sandwich is a crispy wafer, sides are covered in chocolate, but the wafer is not.

And again.

The freezer case at a convenience store I visited on the island of Shikoku. You can see vanilla, strawberry, green tea, rich milk, orange, melon, royal milk tea, sweet red bean (azuki), cookies and cream, caramel crispy sandwiches, rich milk crispy sandwiches, and chocolate crispy sandwiches.

Same freezer case, highlighting orange and melon flavors. Notice the price is ¥263 (≈$2.63) for a tiny cup (about 3/4 cup).

Same freezer case, highlighting royal milk tea and sweet red bean (azuki) flavors.

Green Tea

Green tea (matcha) ice cream in the middle of a round piece of green tea flavored pound cake.

Green tea (matcha) ice cream cup

Green tea (matcha) sorbet/sherbert cup with a red bean (azuki) core

Green tea (matcha) ice cream sandwich. This one was rather expensive. ¥315 (≈$3.15) I wouldn't have bought it, but a guy at the 7-11 who I talk to a lot told me they're really good and sell fairly well. Actually, it was awfully good, but maybe not 3 times as good as the other ones which cost about ¥100 (≈$1.00).

Green tea (matcha) ice cream sandwich, consumption in progress.

Chocolate covered

Vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate and almonds. Better than average for these things.

Same bar, in action.

Just what it looks like. Vanilla ice cream bar covered in chocolate and roasted almonds.

Bongo vanilla ice cream bar covered in chocolate with nuts. There's a layer of cookie inside and little bits of chocolate cookie mixed into the ice cream.

Bongo ice cream bar, in action.

Vanilla ice cream balls, covered in milk chocolate

Caramel ice cream balls, covered in milk chocolate

Vanilla ice cream bar covered in milk chocolate and almonds, with a solid chocolate core. Called Cherio or something like that.

Same bar with the solid chocolate core, but in a value pack. These are cheaper, but also smaller.

Same bar out of the package.

Same bar with the solid chocolate core, but in a value pack. These are cheaper, but also smaller.

Same bar out of the package.

Vanilla ice cream bars covered in milk chocolate

A chocolate bar with ice cream inside. Mostly chocolate.

A chocolate bar with ice cream inside. Don't tell my cardiologist!

Vanilla ice cream bar covered in chocolate and macadamia nuts. This is one of my current favorites.

Same tasty vanilla-chocolate-macadamia ice cream bar.

Vanilla ice cream bar covered in milk chocolate and almonds, with a solid chocolate core

Two cookie-biscuits with ice cream and whipped cream in between, all covered in milk chocolate

Vanilla ice cream bars covered in milk chocolate and toffee bits

Chocolate ice cream bar covered in milk chocolate and nuts

Cookie-dough ice cream bar from a vending machine at Aioi station

Rice flour (mochi)

Yuki ichigo. Means snow-strawberry. The outside is rice flour dough (mochi). In the very middle is a strawberry surrounded by whipped cream, again surrounded by lots of powdered sugar which, besides being good with this, insulates the rice flour dough from the whipped cream.

Rice-flour balls (mochi) filled with vanilla ice cream

Big rice flour ball popsicle filled with red beans (azuki)

Vanilla ice cream with strawberries in the middle, covered in rice flour dough (mochi) with a layer of powdered sugar between the ice cream and the dough. It sounds complicated, but it is quite good. This is a commercial take on a delicious dessert usually found at specialty shops.

And again.

Waffle

A caramel latte flavored waffle. Inside is a layer of chocolate. The coffee flavor is very light.

The action shot of the caramel latte flavored waffle.

For the chocolate lover, this is a chocolate flavored waffle stuffed with chocolate ice cream with bits of chocolate mixed in.

One of the better waffle treats. The waffle on this one tastes like a waffle you'd make at home or get in a decent breakfast diner. And, the ice cream's pretty good, too. The rest of these come with things that are called waffles, but are actually more like wafers. This one's actually a real waffle.

Same waffle sandwich, in action.

Waffle filled with ice cream and Hershey's chocolate

Waffle filled with red bean (azuki) ice creami from a vending machine at Aioi station

Waffle filled with strawberry ice cream and bits of chocolate

Waffle filled with vanilla ice cream, with a solid bar of hard milk choclate running down the middle

Waffle filled with ice cream and Hershey's chocolate

Waffle filled with chocolate, crunchy bits, and ice cream.

Sweet red bean (azuki)

This is very Japanese, I think. It's a fish shaped pastry-type-thing filled with red bean ice cream.

Same fish shaped red bean ice cream treat. It's called Tai-yaki-ice. Tai is a kind of fish. Tai-yaki is fried tai. But, when they say tai-yaki, they usually mean little bready things that look just like this but are stuffed with red beans instead of red bean ice cream. They're often served hot near tourist attractions (e.g. castles) or at fairs.

This one is not ice cream. This is the real tai-yaki that the above ice cream is emulating. This was near Okayama castle. They look pretty similar, huh?

Red bean (azuki) ice cream cup

Red bean (azuki) ice cream bars with whole red beans inside

A very expensive cup of sweet red bean ice cream. It costs ¥380 (≈$3.80) for about 3/4 of a cup.

Same cup of pricey sweet red bean ice cream.

Other

Chocolate-milk-strawberry bar. The outside is like a fudge-sickle. Inside is a thick layer of condensed milk with a thin core of strawberry jam.

Strawberry cheesecake ice cream bar.

Strawberry cheesecake ice cream bar, in action.

Soft cookies with a nice, dense vanilla ice cream and a pat of smooth red bean paste inside.

Action shot. You can see a little of the red bean paste, but there's actually a little more than what shows.

Vanilla ice cream wrapped in a crepe. The crepe is good. The vanilla is average, but the whole thing is very good.

The manufacturer was kind enough to put a little ball of cookie at the bottom to absorb the drip.

Strawberry and condensed milk bar.

Strawberry and condensed milk bar, in action.

A milky ice cream bar with small sweet red beans mixed in.

A milky ice cream bar with bits of chocolate cookie mixed in.

Probably the weirdest ice cream I've had in Japan. It's just vanilla ice cream inside. But, you eat it out of a latex wrapper that looks very much like a condom. You cut off the end of the container and the ice cream starts flowing out. You eat it as it comes out. It's hard to stop it. If you like it, you can suck it out faster. Yeah. Totally gross.

Another picture of the condom ice cream.

A poster advertising various flavors being sold on a train platform in Osaka's Umeda Station. There's vanilla, green tea, Hokkaido melon, and sweet potato.

Pino. These are little balls of strawberry ice cream covered in chocolate.

Chocolate mint ice cream from 7-11. It's just a cheap one, but it was surprisingly good.

Chocolate chip, chocolate ice cream bar.

Sour cherry soft serve ice cream. I got this at a neat place near Himeji castle. They have a machine that lets you add raw ingredients to the soft serve as it's coming out the machine. It's not like a mix in. Actually, they are ground up and mixed thoroughly with the ice cream by the machine. You can choose what you want mixed in. But, the ingredients take over the flavor of the ice cream completely. It's great.

An odd flavor of ice cream I had at a park with Akemi. Sorry, I can't remember the name. TODO: Find the name and write it here.

Soy milk flavor ice cream with fruit, eaten in Suma (near Kobe) with Akemi and our moms. TODO: double check the flavor on this one.

Don't remember the flavor on this, but we had this in Suma (near Kobe) with Akemi and our moms. TODO: ask about the flavor of this one.

A display of various desserts offered at a diner in the Namba neighborhood of Osaka.

These Shirokuma (White Bear) ice cream bars have fruit and beans mixed in.

Shirokuma bar

Shirokuma bar, in action

Here's a Shirokuma cup, made by a different company. Same idea but in a cup.

Shirokuma cup, contents.

Soy milk soft serve ice cream from a shop at Umeda Station in Osaka.

Condensed milk ice cup. Basically, it's a cup of snow with condensed milk mixed in. In the center is a solid core of delicious condensed milk.

Garigari popsicle. A guy in the Netherlands wrote to me and asked about some blue popsicles he sees in Japanese movies all the time. I'm almost sure these are the ones. I bought this and photographed it just for him. It's a boring but sweet soda flavored popsicle.

Garigari popsicle.

Gaufretta. A wafer with vanilla ice cream inside and chocolate on the outside.

An ice cream cone with ice cream only in the inside and a thick layer over the top. A little disappointing since there's more cone and chocolate than ice cream.

A cream puff type pastry full of coffee flavor ice cream.

Same coffee ice cream puff pasty, in action.

Mikan (Japanese orange) popsicle.

Apple sorbet.

Strawberry "chocolate" with little bits of candy on the outside. Solid normal chocolate core in the middle. Vanilla in most of it.

Wave caramel ice cream cup

Vanilla ice cream cup

Swedish pancake (crepe) filled with ice cream, chocolate, and caramel

A cup of jasmine (tea) soft-serve ice cream I got in China town in Kobe. It was delicious! They also had some equally delicious mango soft-serve ice cream.

A packaged ice cream cone.

Ice cream sandwich made with really tasty vanilla bicuit-cookies

Fudge-sicles

Another kind of packaged ice cream cone. This one has nuts and chocolate, a little like a Nutty Buddy in the United States.

Vanilla ice cream sandwich.

Yet another kind of packaged ice cream cone. A lot like a Nutty Buddy in the United States.

Chocolate-banana ice cream cup.

Vanilla ice cream bar with half strawberries embedded, very tasty like everything else here.

Homemade

My first batch of homemade ice cream. Vanilla.

And the ice cream maker I used to make it.

Ice cream eaten in other parts of Asia, while taking trips

Malaysia - yam ice cream with whipped cream and cherry on top.

Malaysia - ice cream bar with beans or fruit (I forget which) and coconut.

Malaysia - red bean popsicle

Malaysia - sweet corn in one. Either mango or coconut in the other. (I had both mango and coconut that day, but I don't remember which this was.

Malaysia - lychee-soursop-papaya (I think) and pineapple-guava.

Malaysia - gingerbread ice cream from Baskin Robbins.

China - green pea ice cream bar. These are all over China.

China - plain old strawberry ice cream being sold at a convenience store. It's interesting to note the price, about $9 or $10 in US funds. Even more expensive than Japan, and much more expensive than the same thing in the United States. It's odd for a poor country like China.

China - the bars go for a similarly ridiculous price of about $4 each.

Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

Ice Cream

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