Kakigori is a conventional summertime shaved ice dessert in Japan. Tokyo gets even more creative and experimental with its flavors and toppings as its popularity rises. We’ve rounded up some of the quirkiest, over-the-top shaved ice creations in town. So, if you’re up for testing your flavor buds, you will need to give those icy creations a try.
Edamame milk from Otona Kurogi
A popular aspect dish and izakaya staple, edamame beans, get a reinvention at Otona Kurogi as a seasonal shaved ice topping. Although this savory factor can also appear strange when used in a candy application, the creamy combination of mashed edamame and milk is relatively great and gives the proper sweetness.
The fluffy shaved ice is doused in sweetened milk before being topped with the edamame aggregate and finished with a sprinkling of whole edamame beans and crispy rice bits. Dig in, and you may hit a layer of adzuki bean paste beneath the ice mountain. You’ll discover this peculiar dessert at Otona Kurogi, Kuriya Kashi Kurogi’s sister store at the Hongo Campus of the University of Tokyo. ¥1,800
Eggplant pink wine at Azabu Yasaigashi
Known for its veggie-based goodies and desserts, Azabu Yasaigashi’s summer shaved ice services include one uncommon creation: eggplant purple wine. The wine shines via this extraordinary dessert, wherein small morsels of eggplant are blended with purple wine to make a rich, almost jam-like compote. The topping works splendidly with the mild and fluffy ice drizzled with a cream cheese sauce. You must also deliver alternative veggie flavors like cherry tomato, spinach matcha, and more. ¥1,000
Gorgonzola fig at Neiroya Jinbocho
If you respect the punchy flavor of Gorgonzola cheese, this kakigori is for you. Served at ramen and kakigori, keep Neiroya in Jinbocho; this cheesy kakigori is one of the seasonal flavors to be had from 2 pm. The accompanying flavor (to the cheese) can also trade depending on the week; however, anticipate seasonal (summer) fruit like fig (pictured above). The resident-made Gorgonzola cheese-milk is layered over the ice before the fruity topping. This particularly delicious kakigori will have you coming lower back for greater, ideal stability of salt and candy. ¥1,250
Chocolate kakigori at Minimal Bean to Bar
This jam-packed kakigori from Chocolate Purveyors Minimal is an appropriate summertime treat for chocolate fanatics. Made with bean-to-bar chocolate from Trinidad and Tobago, it has sparkling citrus notes. It truly is ideal for the summertime. It has some uncommon fillings hidden beneath all that ice: jelly crafted from cacao fruit pulp, chewy tapioca pearls, a scoop of chocolate ice cream, and strangely sufficient, sweet mung beans, which add a texture much like adzuki beans. ¥980
Spaghetti kakigori at Kihachi Aoyama
Okay, this one is so leftfield that we’re intrigued and nervous at the same time. Not precisely a dessert, these pasta dishes are crowned with shaved ice to help cool you down on a sweltering summer day. Japan is obsessed with Hayashi Chuka bloodless ramen noodles, so why must pasta be specific?
There are 4 ‘snow-ice pasta’ options right here: Santa Fe shrimp and avocado; yuzu and tomato tuna tartare; veggie and chook salad pasta with salmon sauce; and the wildly popular uni (sea urchin) and asparagus carbonara spaghetti. Give it an attempt. Who knows that shaved ice spaghetti might be your new favorite summer dish? From ¥1,680
Angelina Restaurant
3561 N. Broadway, 773-935-5933
You certainly have now not lived, or you haven’t lived well till you have had the bread pudding at this romantic, hidden gem in East Lakeview, which serves homemade and real Italian fare. Their conventional Italian bread pudding has a milk chocolate twist. Many bread puddings can be soggy and too moist. Still, this pudding remains semi-firm but wet and rich, studded with the chocolate chunks, which most effectively barely melted, maintain their shape and add a wonderful thing to each chew.
Lumbar
18 E. Bellevue, 312-642-3400
If you order dessert, you may as well pass it all out. The Snickers pie at this Gibson-owned hotspot inside the heart of the Gold Coast will knock your socks off—in terms of length and taste. The big heap of ice cream with layers of Snickers bits, chocolate, caramel, and peanuts serves at least eight humans. Although the pie seems like it might be too sweet, fanatics of the treat swear by the stuff due to the coolest balance of ice cream to sweet bits.
Dunlay’s at the Square
3137 W. Logan, 773-227-2400
Remember the chocolate chip cookies your mother or grandma used to bake, which you’d consume from the oven with a tumbler of milk? The large cookie at this Lincoln Square, friendly neighborhood restaurant is identical, except the milk is replaced with a beneficiant scoop of wealthy vanilla ice cream. Crispy on the lowest and warm and oozing velvety chocolate on the inner, this giant cookie baked in a cast-iron skillet gets a drizzling of caramel sauce and then goes at once on your desk. You will assume you’ve died and long passed to heaven.
