japanese candy friday: pino mint (giant jeans parlor!)

It's 80°F (26°C) with a disgusting 94% humidity and soon I'll have to ride my bicycle home in a thunderstorm. And it's my birthday. Let's talk about something happy. Let's talk about ice cream.

While trolling the frozen treats aisle last night, I was drawn to a box of Pino Mint, mainly for it's blueness. I thought at first it might be flavored with sea salt, like the other blue ice cream I ate in Japan, but it was just mint, plain and simple. Why do mint and blue not go together for me? Mint is green or maybe white. Blue is sea salt or bubble gum ice cream. Pino is a decent brand of ice cream bonbons, the kind of thing I always imagined a beautiful, indolent housewife might eat while lounging on a daybed in her bathrobe. Perhaps blue, conjuring images of tropical seas and dreamy Paul Newman eyes, better suits this lifestyle than green.

A tiny blue stick is included for mess-free bonbon eating. Handy! After a few minutes of sitting in my sweltering living room, the Pino were the perfect texture, soft but not squishy yet, the chocolate melding with the ice cream center. Not brittle like the coating on a dipped cone, this chocolate was yielding and a little bitter, making the whole thing taste a lot like a frozen York Peppermint Pattie. Um, I'd consider become an indolent housewife for these.

Though one small annoyance is that the box doesn't close very securely, let's be honest: these are so good, they won't be sitting around your freezer for very long.

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the blueness. It looks a lot like the picture on the box. But still...these don't taste blue at all.

Comments (16)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! TWENTY-EIGHT!!! AHHHHH!!!!

(and yes, your birthday DOES call for numerous exclamation points and the caps lock key. i love you!)

Posted by sonya | June 30, 2007 3:19 AM

Happy Birthday Anjali!!!!

Posted by Sasha | June 30, 2007 3:30 AM

happy birthday!! mmm, i love mint :)

Posted by gleek | June 30, 2007 4:50 AM

Happy Birthday! About the blue... mint gum is generally blue, not green, so maybe it kind of makes sense? I see where you're coming from, though, hehe.

Posted by Erin | June 30, 2007 5:09 AM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

When I see blue food I think of that mysterious berry flavor, like razzleberry.

Posted by Mariko | June 30, 2007 9:42 AM

Happy Belated Birthday!!

I'm at work today, and I think the perfect celebration at the end of this day would be a box of mint Pino. Thanks for the idea!!

Have a great weekend. :)

Posted by molly! | June 30, 2007 10:02 AM

Happy Birthday! Hmm, maybe I'll try some mint pinos today!!

Posted by kat | June 30, 2007 10:34 AM

happy bday! one comment: isnt pino sometimes a racially derogatory term for philipino? e.g. in hongkong, you get loads of pino housekeepers hanigng out in the parks on friday evenings etc...

Posted by Matt | June 30, 2007 12:27 PM

Happy Birthday! My bros birthday is today also! Just got finished celebrating. Anways I love your blog and always look forward to candy friday

Posted by Aimi | June 30, 2007 12:35 PM

Happy Birthday! I had matcha pino once... yummyumm! maybe mint pino are blue because the used green allready for matcha ;)

Posted by Julia | June 30, 2007 1:21 PM

Happy birthday! I'm glad that you got good candy on your birthday, how sad I'd have been for you, to read that your birthday edition of Japanese Candy Friday had been gross! I hope you have a fantastic year.

Posted by cinco | June 30, 2007 2:36 PM

Happy birthday!! Hope you had a great day!

Posted by myra | June 30, 2007 4:01 PM

oh. my. god.

I am an indolent housewife...

and I go for the green stuff (if it is mint and not matcha) and blue would be bubblegum or blueberry.

but I will look for this stuff next time cause it looks so good.

oh!!! and!!!! Happy!!!! Birthday!!!!!!

and what can I send you from Nagasaki... as a sad to see you go... but happy birthday gift...

let me know.. I WILL SEND IT.

mariko... I am from Lynden and I thought razzleberry was a local term not a PNW thing.....

jan in nagasaki.