Liebe Lemon Crush Bavarian Style Quark: Today I learned that Quark is a Bavarian crossover between yogurt and cream cheese, yielding a thick and creamy treat whose consistency is unparalleled in the yogurt aisles. The last time I had a yogurt this smooth, it was homemade at Sophie's Greek Pantry in Massachusetts. The Lemon Crush flavor has an impressively sweet and tart flavor; the entire container has 10g of sugar, so it's sweet but not too sweet. Definitely recommend and looking forward to trying the other flavors! 4.0/5.0
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Morgenstern's 850 Deluxe ice cream sandwich: With oatmeal cookies, grape ice cream, and walnuts, this treat somehow combines the taste of a childhood afterschool snack of cookies and a Welch's grapefruit juice box and elevates it to culinary levels. The oatmeal cookies have a satisfying bite, with raisins that aren't overly tough despite being frozen; the grape ice cream is balanced by a bit of lemon juice; walnuts add an unexpected flavor and texture. An excellent ice cream sandwich that was part of the #fuckthatsdelicious collaborat... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Sun Fruits Apple Juice: In the basement of the swanky Tokyo Midtown department store is a speciality fruit shop called Sun Fruits, the type of shop where sumo oranges (dekopan) are individually wrapped in a form-fitting web of styrofoam and boxes of pale white strawberries go for 8,000¥ ($73 USD). The one item I felt I could afford, and also I was most interested in trying, was a bottle of what I presumed to be a barely-pink fruit soda, which cost $3.50. It turns out that it was a bottle of apple juice, with frui... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Shake Shack Black sesame milkshake: I hadn't been to a Shake Shack in Japan and stumbled upon one near Meiji Jingu, where I went to see the yellow autumn ginko trees. I stopped in to see if they had any exclusives, and their menu features a Japan-only black sesame shake. It was super satisfying on multiple levels: thicker than anything I've found in Japan, with a nutty and savory black sesame flavor that didn't taste at all artificial. Black sesame is one of my favorite flavors; I've had a lot of black sesame snacks over the ... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Ginza Akebono Strawberry Daifuku: For the most part, I've been able to try all the major traditional Japanese confectionary treats in my time in Japan, so I generally haven't been going out of my way to visit particular shops. However, if I see that a shop has a line, I'll take a look, especially as there are essentially no tourists in Tokyo now and so any place with a line is a local favorite. I hadn't known about this small shop in Ginza that opened right after WWII (about 60 years old), but their ichigo (strawberry) dai... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Lopez Island Mint chocolate ice cream: We’ve had some hot weekends in Seattle and I had a sudden craving for mint ice cream the other day, so I decided to treat myself to a new brand I hadn’t tried before. Lopez Island Creamery is based in Anacortes, WA, which I only know from PW Elverum & Sun, and makes, according to the packaging “handmade ice cream one batch at a time.” The ice cream is pure white in color and features bite sized chocolate chips (not the shaved chocolate you sometimes get with this classic flavor). It was exa... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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