Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
ice cream (Page 25)
On a recent trip to the US, one of our Japanese reporters, Yoshio, heard about an unusual vending machine that serves up ice cream. Excited to see how the icy treats would be delivered, our reporter made a beeline for the machine’s nearest location: the local Walmart. We filmed the machine in action and got his take on the automated ice cream experience first-hand.
Causal clothing retail giant UNIQLO announced last week it would introduce a line of women’s and kids’ shorts themed on Baskin-Robbins ice-cream flavors from June 24.
Even royalty can get a sweet tooth from time to time, and in the blistering heat of a Japanese summer, what could be a better way to satisfy the urge for sweets than a big bowl of ice cream? Of course, when dealing with the imperial family, not just any old brand of ice cream will suffice. That’s why in 1968 a special recipe for handmade ice cream was developed for their royal highnesses, the Emperor and Empress of Japan. It’s called Snow Royal and can still be purchased from Snowbrand-Parlor (雪印パーラー) in Hokkaido..
Sorry guys, but no more pick-and-mix cups, cones or parfaits of tantalizingly delicious Häagen-Dazs ice cream will be available in Japan as of Friday, the last of the well-known brand’s outlets is scheduled to close up on April 25.
Though you’ll no longer be able mix your favorite flavors into a cup of scrumptiousness at a Häagen-Dazs-branded shop, the purveyor of pleasurable experiences (or so the ads tell us) will continue to sell pre-packaged offerings at convenience stores and supermarkets throughout the country.
So I can still get Häagen-Dazs at the supermarket, what’s the big deal you ask? Well, the brick-and-mortar locations carried flavors and creations not available in off-the-shelf form.
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Japan has some of the best customer service in the world. We recently ran a story about a convenience store worker who packed our writer’s purchase so that the cold and hot drinks wouldn’t touch. This is just one of the many examples of the attention to detail that is given by workers in Japan. Sure, sometimes you land up having to wait five minutes at the department store while the clerk wraps every individual item (and the line of people behind you slowly creeps past the front doors), but this level of service is nothing short of amazing.
On my most recent visit to Baskin Robbins (it’s simply known as “31 Ice Cream” in Japan), I was shocked by the level of service I received after ordering a single cup of ice cream to-go. Most astonishing was the small block of dry ice that was placed on top of the ice cream to prevent it from melting on the way home.
Rest stops in Japan tend to be a little different from their western counterparts. Aside from offering drivers a chance to stretch their legs and powder their noses, they often offer unique goods characteristic of the area. Sometimes the rest stops are even the final destinations for summer road trips.
A perfect example of a unique rest stop is the Ranzan Parking Area (RPA) in Saitama prefecture along the Kanetsu Expressway. Here you can get your hands on two specialty dishes, ice cream and curry, both black as midnight.
And before you say it: no, neither dishes use squid ink.
You’d think that when someone at Nestle proposed making a Kit Kat ice cream cone, they would have taken the conventional route and used ice cream with crushed up bits of Kit Kat in it.
But that was not the case with the frozen treat we came across at a supermarket during a recent trip to Sakhalin. Instead, this “Kit Kat Cone” was nothing more than a regular store-bought ice cream cone with a single Kit Kat wedged in the top.
We’ve probably all experienced that struggle, that anguish – you go to eat your ice cream only to discover it’s still frozen solid and your spoon can only make pathetic little dents in it. The folks at Lemnos Co. could not let this injustice go unaddressed, and have invented a special spoon to do the job. Read More
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