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Japan’s new mayonnaise ice cream doesn’t taste like you’d expect【Taste test】

Casey Baseel Sep 29, 2019
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A different surprise than the one we’d braced ourselves for.

Here at SoraNews24, we’re not sticklers for tradition when it comes to ice cream. Heck, in the past we’ve tried two different kinds of ramen ice cream, and only really regretted half of one of them.

But even we weren’t sure if Japan’s latest unusual ice cream flavor, Creamy Mayonnaise, was such a good idea. Of course, bad ideas are kind of our area of expertise, and so we quickly snatched up a 140-yen (US$1.30) bar as soon as they went on sale.

We felt just a tiny twinge of confidence in the idea when we remembered that the product, officially the Calorie Monster Cherio Creamy Mayonnaise Flavor, is made by Morinaga, which produces some of Japan’s best-tasting non-crazy frozen treats too. Morinaga proudly boasts that it’s created “Japan’s first” mayonnaise ice cream, though we’re not sure how much pride it should take in that since the previous lack of such a dessert might not be because no one else thought of it, but because everyone else did think of it and then immediately decided it was too weird to even try to sell.

Morinaga had the necessary abundance of courage and/or lack of common sense to bring the concept to market, though, and so here we are. As shown in the diagram above, the Creamy Mayonnaise follows the lead of the rest of the Cherio line by having an identically flavored core and coating with a second flavor in between. However, unlike the chocolate/vanilla of the standard Cherio, this one has white chocolate in the center and cookie-crumb-enhanced outside edge, with the majority of the space taken up by mayonnaise ice cream.

▼ Our dissection got pretty messy, but you can see the white chocolate circled in blue and the mayonnaise circled in red.

We braced ourselves for a shock as we took a bite, and we were definitely surprised…by how normal it tastes! Really, the strongest impression was still white chocolate, so much so that at first, you might not even be able to discern the presence of the Creamy Mayonnaise’s marque ingredient. On subsequent bites, we started to notice a bit of saltiness along with a rich, slightly oily element, but for the most part, the white chocolate steals the show.

On the plus side, this means the Calorie Monster Cherio Creamy Mayonnaise Flavor tastes great, and even when you do notice the mayo, the fact that Japanese mayo has a thicker consistency and less sourness than Wester varieties means it’s not really a problem, but it doesn’t really deliver on the craziness we’d been anticipating with a mix of excitement and fear. Naturally, when life doesn’t give you quite enough craziness, you have to figure out ways to add some craziness to life, so we grabbed a pair of chopsticks, scraped a large dollop of mayonnaise ice cream away from the white chocolate…

…and plopped it onto a salad.

▼ PLOP!

Unfortunately, the bar’s filling is, as we mentioned before, mayonnaise ice cream, and not just straight-up mayo. Because of that, it was a little too cold, and also too sweet, to really work as a salad accompaniment.

In the end, you’re better off sticking to just enjoying the Creamy Mayonnaise Cherio as-is, and while it might not blow your mind like the name might make you expect, this is definitely a superior choice to fish or snake ice cream.

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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he refuses to give up hope that Morinaga will bring back the orange-flavored Ice Box.