Sweet Potato Ice Cream

Brand: N/A

Cost: 500 yen

Found at: Osu Kannon

I love the sweet potato. It’s a millennial thing – like the quiet, shy, stepsister of the avocado. Roast it, bake it, steam it, stir-fry it, blend it into a soup there is nothing that cannot be improved by a little sweet potato. And now, I can happily attest, that this includes ice cream. This swirl of sweet potato ice cream, which tops a cone stuffed with mashed, buttery sweet potato, is one of the better desserts I have ever had. After a long day, wandering the tourist streets of Osu Kannon on a wet, Tuesday afternoon, the rich sweetness of this ice cream is both indulgent and surprisingly nourishing. Like eating a meal backward, you start from the top with the creamy, potato-flecked ice-cream and finish with a very filling portion of mashed potato. It is somehow both a new taste experience and a reassuring comfort food – a reminder of how you cannot always neatly categorize the world into either “new” or “familiar.” And a reminder that there are very few flavors that make poor ice-creams.