Cool Miyagi Summer Regional Ice Cream Flavors

    At the end of July, my husband and I took a few days off to spend with our kid and in the interest of exploring while keeping our regional infection rate low, we did not leave our prefecture. It turns out there is plenty of fun to be had in Miyagi alone and a number of the cool little roadside shops offer their own special ice cream flavors. Here are some of the best.

    One of my favorites right off the bat was the himawari or sunflower ice cream available at the Sanbongi road stop in an area known for sunflowers. Unfortunately, the flowers do not usually bloom until about a month after we visited but the flavors in the ice cream were stunning. The Japanese tendency to avoid the overwhelming sweet of American desserts is sometimes wonderful and sometimes horrifying, but in this case worked really well. It tasted a lot like sunflower seeds but mixed with a light floral nature. It was so delicious in fact that I managed to devoir the entire thing before I remembered to take a picture of it, so my only picture of it is this one, of the ad in the window of the part of the shop that sells ice cream. The color of the ice cream was a soft yellow. If this were available at the grocery store, I would pick it up once a week.

    There is a lovely tomato enthused restaurant connected to a tomato farm out here and my husband managed to find it. When we stopped for lunch, the food was glorious so I had high hopes for the ice cream as well and it did not disappoint. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it could be, but was still really fun and refreshing as far as flavors go. The coloration on the ice cream was also less intense than I thought it could be, but it's freshly made produce with fewer dyes and preservatives. This added to its charm. I would eat this twice a month if given the opportunity.

    Soramame isn't a flavor I would normally associate with desserts or ice cream specifically but some people in my prefecture apparently do, leading to this interesting option. When we went, there were lines out the door and far too many people inside the roadstop-shop turned regional store turned famers market, so my husband went in for us and brought us ice cream in cups to enjoy in the car.


This picture was taken in the five second interval when people weren't swarming through the doors.



    The texture is more in a mushed bean than ice cream but the flavor works with that. A mild sweet-savory flavor comes through well and is enjoyable. If you like nut butters and bean flavors, this probably is a fine flavor for you. It wasn't my favorite ice cream of this trip but I would eat it once a month if it were available to me.

    What regionally delicious goodies did you find this summer?