Two Good Things Together Don't Necessarily Make a Better Product

Ice Manju Ichigo

Brand: Marunaga

Price: 150 yen

Place of purchase: 7-Eleven

Rating:

The strawberry-flavoured ice cream outer layer has a mild, strawberry milk flavouring that is pleasant by itself. This nice flavour is likely achieved by the presence of 5% strawberry juice, as noted on the package. Spread throughout the ice cream are bits of real strawberry as well. Once you get through the strawberry layer, there is a ball of red bean paste at the core. I enjoy the earthy yet sweet taste of anko and eating it cold somehow makes it better. While I wouldn’t mind eating the product by itself, it is on a stick, so eating it is quite easy.

While the red beans and strawberry ice cream is good by themselves, when eaten together they seem to cancel out and I'm left with just a cold something in my mouth. I noticed that if I ate just the strawberry part, I could appreciate it's flavour more. Likewise with the red beans. When eaten together, the two components seem to fight each other. Another negative in my opinion is the placement of the red beans. I think they're way to packed in at the top of the popsicle. If the beans were to be found in every part of the item, It would work better in terms of flavour.