I often look back fondly on my summer holiday a couple of years ago when Dr HH and I toured the north of Italy and ate gelato every day of our two week trip. Every day! I was well-prepared for the fact that Japan wouldn’t match that (though there is apparently a lot of vegan soft serve around – somehow we kept missing it), so we were delighted when we found this one place in Kyoto with a tempting vegan menu.

There was a separate vegan menu, and cabinet – that’s what I like to see! There were some pretty wild flavours, but I played it safe with Belgian chocolate and rice milk. They complemented each other well. The chocolate was very rich and creamy, a real treat. The rice milk was a bit bland…I don’t really know what I was expecting though. I think I played it a bit too safe really.

Dr HH certainly did not! He ordered one scoop which was some kind of nuts and coffee flavour I’d never heard of before (he liked it a lot), and the other scoop was excitingly called ninja! This turned out to be black sesame flavoured. I saw a lot of black sesame ice cream when I was living in Hong Kong, but this was the first time I’d spotted a vegan variety. It was so delicious, easily the best of the bunch. Thank goodness that one of us is adventurous, anyway!

Would you order ninja ice cream?!