The Weirdest Ice Cream Flavors from Around the World

Jordana Weiss | July 25, 2018

The faster summer approaches, the more we begin to crave sweet, cool ice cream. For many of us, it represents our childhood — the thrill of a dripping ice cream cone at the beach, or the joy of the tinkling ice cream truck coming down your street.

While the most popular flavors in the United States remain the old standbys — vanilla, chocolate, and maybe cookies and cream if we’re feeling fancy — many ice cream shops today are branching out beyond these staple flavors and trying to bring new levels of creativity to your favorite scoops. Savory options are more popular than ever before, and chefs seem to be trying to one-up each other to see who can serve up the craziest flavor.

If you’re feeling adventurous, here are some of the weirdest ice cream flavors in the world.

Raw Horse Flesh

Namja Town is Tokyo’s largest indoor amusement park. It opened in 1996 inside the Sunshine City shopping mall in Ikebukuro. While most of their games are geared towards children, the ice cream shop inside the arcade is where people young and old go in search of the world’s most unique ice cream. Unlike most places in North America where you can sample up to three flavors of ice cream per cone, Ice Cream Paradise encourages visitors to sample up to six flavors at a time. Some of their more unique offerings include shark fin noodle, tulip, grilled eggplant, and raw horse flesh.

The ever-innocuous vanilla is probably best suited as a base for combining all sorts of fruit toppings. It's a neutral taste that blends easily.

Because I can't, for the life of me, imagine a combination of mint and taro ice cream. Or raw horse flesh and anything ?? pic.twitter.com/41Ifz8IVaz

— Console Gamer (@consolegamr) November 11, 2017

Basil and Cocoa Nib

While this herbaceous flavor might not be the most ideal for everyone’s palates, the basil and cocoa nib flavor that can be found at Salt & Straw in Seattle is actually quite delicious. Salt & Straw is a Portland favorite that just recently opened two new locations in the area. The basil and cocoa nib flavor was created to honor confectioner Aaron Barthel’s Intrigue Chocolate shop, a local favorite. The basil mixes with their vanilla ice cream base really well, and the cocoa nibs provide a great textural contrast.

Cerovsek Barbara / Shutterstock.com

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