Wasabi Ice Cream from Uzumaki

I remembered someone making a comment a while back about how bad this wasabi ice cream was. Granted, it didn't exactly sound appetizing either, but when I passed by this little stand at Bugis Junction today, I figured that I'd give it a shot. It wasn't all about exotic flavors here; they did have some familiar tastes like chocolate and blueberry, complete with toppings like almonds and chocolate chips. They also had what most of us have probably been exposed to as Japanese ice cream, such as green tea (matcha) ice cream as well as black sesame and red bean. But I wanted to go for the most outrageous: the wasabi ice cream, pushing it even further with an optional seaweed topping.

In many ways it was pretty much the way I imagined it to be: wasabi-flavored (kinda like those fried pea snack things) but with the mildly sweet and milky taste that comes with ice cream. The wasabi flavor was surprisingly strong (it will still clear your nasal congestion), and yet putting it together with ice cream didn't actually seem that far out of place. Now, I won't exactly be yearning for Baskin Robbins to make this their 32nd flavor anytime soon, but I do have to admit that I kinda liked it.

I once had garlic ice cream at the Gilroy Garlic Festival back in California a very, very, very long time ago, and that just tasted like vanilla ice cream with garlic on top (if my memory is correct). This one was much more seamlessly integrated and didn't seem that unnatural...once you got past the fact that it was wasabi-flavored, anyway. I'll come back...although perhaps for the black sesame ice cream instead, depending on what kind of mood I'm in.