Hobson's Tofu Ice Cream: Hobson's is an Americana-inspired ice cream shop in Roppongi, decorated with blue and white checkboard and featuring American pop music from David Bowie and the like. It's decor is verging on kitchy but also has a bit of charm. While it's clearly American-inspired, it offers Japanese flavors like green tea, tofu, and yuzu. I got the tofu ice cream, which I really wanted to like, but to be honest it was some of the worst ice cream wise, mostly because of the texture. As tofu is itself a wa... (read more) 1.0/5.0
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Emial Tapiocatime Royal Latte: My sleep has been terrible, with jetlag and the world burning down, so I've been relying on caffeinated beverages more than normal. On my way to lab, I purchased this tapioca drink from 7-11. It's an iced coffee, very sweet, that contains gelatinous balls that aren't quite like normal starchy and chewy tapioca but have a unique texture all its own that I surprisingly enjoyed. It reminds me a little bit of a more chewy jellyfish, which I know is not the most appetizing comparison but the cl... (read more) 3.5/5.0
drinks coffee japanese 711 emial tapiocatime royal latte 3.5 recommended
UHA Tea Gummies: An impulse buy at 7-11, these are miniature gummy candies about half the size of a typical gumdrop. There are four different flavors: brown sugar, milk tea, mango tea, and orange tea. They seen extra chewy and dense. My favorites is the milk tea and mango, though they all have a definitively artificial candy flavor. I'm not sure it works collectively since milk tea is pretty different and someway clashing in flavor with free teas. 3.0/5.0
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Shiro-Hige Cream Puff Factory Totoro Cream Puff: Shiro-Hige Cream Puff Factory is a small, quaint shop / cafe about a 10 minute walk from the Odakyu Line in Tokyo. I'm not positive of its official affiliation with Studio Ghibli, but it has so much tasteful Ghibli decor, including original watercolors and sketches, that I would imagine it has been sanctioned by the studio. Their speciality is Totoro cream puffs ranging in flavor from strawberry, chocolate, banana, and regular, each with their own adorable decoration; for example, the stra... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Pokemon Sweets Pikachu Crackle Juice: I purchased this beverage from the Pikachu Sweets shop in Sunshine City, a mall in Tokyo featuring many Pokemon shops. The juice was pretty pricy, at $6, and tasted strongly of sweet pineapple. It had an ice cube in a shape of a round Pikachu head and contained pop-rocks so that it literally crackles. I like the creativity of the drink and think it's fitting for the game; it was too sweet for me to ever want to have again, though, and was priced for tourism. 3.0/5.0
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Happy Ice Brown Sugar Boba Ice Cream Bar: This is the famed, verging notorious, Taiwanese brown sugar boba iced tea bar, containing tapioca balls, that have been sold out everywhere. The person who was able to purchase it did not reveal its source but did say that there were multiple boxes available at this unnamed shop in the city of Los Angeles. The bar is a true work of science, with the tapioca balls retaining its iconic stretchy and chewy consistency despite being embedded in a frozen ice cream bar that tastes exactly like br... (read more) 4.5/5.0
recommended icecream taiwanese boba milktea happyice brown sugar ice cream bar 4.5