Japanese have a fascination with different flavours of ice cream, and we are not talking chocolate or strawberry, there are some weird and awful flavours on offer. There's quite a few which are a bit out there like pumpkin, Japanese Tea, Cream Cheese or even Cherry blossom petals.

But there are some others which westerners might be a scared of, like potato and butter, rice cake or wasabi. Then there's the others, how does a nice crab or sea urchin ice cream sound, or perhaps squid flavoured ...tasty. Then there's the alcohol flavoured ones like wine, sake and of course beer flavoured ice cream.

It is quite popular to see ice-cream vending machines around the streets, where 100 - 200 yen will buy a beautifully wrapped ice-cream. Most of the flavours are quite sweet and chocolate coated. Although there are squid and crab or even eel ice creams around, they are not everywhere. One word of advice unless you want to eat raw horse meat ice-cream don't order the Basashi Aisu, its not too tasty even chocolate dipped and with a cherry on top.

The green tea ice-cream on the other hand can be recommended it is much tastier than it sounds. It is quite a popular dish served in many of the restaurants in Japan. The tea flavour comes from Maccha tea powder which is used in many tea ceremonies.

Ice Cream City in Sunshine City complex in Tokyo is home to an amazing assortment of weird ice-cream flavours. There selection varies between seasons but some of their popular flavours include Whale, Ox Tongue, Oyster and Garlic or for the vegetarians lettuce and potato. There's also a chicken flavour and a mouth watering octopus variety to try.

You might think that its easy to make some of this exotic ice-cream, but in actual fact there is a lot of science being used. Many of the seafood varieties freeze at different temperatures than ice-cream and then there's the smell, and aftertaste. Food engineers have spent many hours researching and experimenting to ensure that these flavours keep well, sell well and are delicious.

Also on Happy Jappy
Green tea ice cream recipe
Weird Japanese Soft Drinks
Dog Cafe's
Japanese Toilets
Japanese Snack Foods