Finally, Facebook served an ad for something that I'm actually interested in and able to go to - the Tastes of Japan ice cream truck. It was at the St. Kilda foreshore, and it was such a warm day today, which was really suiting.
It seems to be a partnership between Qantas and Japan National Tourism Organisation as Qantas now offers direct flights from Melbourne to Tokyo. For the promotion, they asked Gelati Messina to create some flavours inspired by Japan and offered a free scoop of ice cream to anyone who showed up.
Is this whole post a shill post? #hailCorporate
I hope it doesn't come off that way! Anyway, they were only serving four flavours today:
I tried the Yam Bam (banana and koji with sweet potato ganache) and Make my Dai Dai (satsuma mandarin curd with dai dai and strawberry citrus gel). Yep, both contain dairy - the things I do for this blog. Actually, it's not even that, I love banana ice cream so much it was so hard to pass up the chance to try it out. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of wasabi, so I was a bit reluctant to try it. I asked one of the staff members which one she liked, and she said all of them except the wasabi one.
The banana part wasn't that great, it was a bit bland. Google says koji seems to be a fungus. The sweet potato ganache was actually pretty interesting, it tasted like white chocolate, even though it was really orange like sweet potato. But the combination of the gelato and the ganache together was nice. It wasn't overly sweet, but sweet enough. Not quite my preferred flavour, as I do like things to be sweet, but it was enjoyable.
There weren't that many people there while I was there, so I asked if I could try another flavour, and they said yes. MrFodder suggested I try the Make my Dai Dai one.
I really liked this one, it was a sweet mandarin flavour with strawberry swirled through it, which was so, so, so, so delicious. It's definitely something I want to try with my own ice cream.
Ice-cream aside, they were also giving away two return tickets to Tokyo. There were some mini games, and I put my hand up for the trivia mini game. There were five trivia questions, the person who answered the most won. The questions were:
- What is the traditional clothing of Japan called? (kimono)
- How do you say "hello" in Japan? (konnichiwa)
- What is the name of the powdered version of green tea? (matcha)
- What is the name of the traditional flower in Japan?
OK, I'm not trying to sound sour, but the guy who won answered "cherry blossom" for the fourth question, while the official flower of Japan is the chrysanthemum. But I was about to say "sakura", so I would have been wrong anyway. The mistake I made was that each of us had to choose a "buzzer" sound. He chose "osu" (which is pronounced like "oss"). I chose "sushi". The other two contestants chose "pokémon" and "chopsticks". It was much faster to say "osu" than "sushi". Also, I only managed to answer the third question, as I buzzed in before the person finished asking the question. I was too slow to buzz in for the other questions, which were all answered by the winner. There was no fifth question, as he had already answered three.
But that wasn't enough to win the two tickets to Japan. His prize was to press a button on a big box:
There was a chance to get the tickets, but there were also Japanese themed prizes, and it seems like he won some plastic rings from Daiso. I felt a bit bad for him, but he said he had been to Japan a few times already.
The second mini game was transferring plastic table tennis balls from a container into a bowl with a pair of chopsticks in 20 seconds.
This guy managed 3.
This guy managed 4.
This guy also managed 4, though he actually did get 5 in, but one bounced out.
This girl managed 9. She was so good at it!
Unfortunately, she didn't win the tickets either, she ended up getting a packet of four little bottles of bubbles.
The last mini-game was a partnered game, where you had to eat the ice-cream and identify the flavour. I had finished my ice-cream by then, so I didn't stay to watch.
They'll be at the St Kilda foreshore again tomorrow (Sunday 5th), and at Queensbridge Square on the 11th and 12th of March, at 12pm.
Here's a photo of all the flavours, in case you were too lazy to click the link above:
I would really like to try the saké slinger one (saké and green apple sorbet). Either way, I got some good inspiration for my own ice-cream adventures.
No comments:
Post a Comment