Shaved Ice: Japanese Kakigori
I knew Japanese shaved ice was going mainstream when I found it on the menu of ChikaLicious, New York's sweetest restaurant and bakery. ChikaLicious' tiny restaurant, Dessert Bar, serves a three-course dessert-only menu, and its tinier bakery across the street, Dessert Club, offers goodies to eat at a choice few tables or to take away.
Dessert Club's shaved ice treat, "Snowlicious" is a mound of soft vanilla ice cream and shaved ice doused with a sweet syrup. I chose the traditional Japanese green tea syrup along with sweetened red beans, similar to the kakigori I ate many summers ago with my sister in Kyoto.
Kyoto is renowned for its beautiful and traditional sweets, and everywhere we went we saw people eating kakigori. Our favorite was Uji-kintoki kakigori, shaved ice covered in a green tea syrup, with sweetened azuki beans under the ice, pillow soft mochi around the sides and a scoop of green tea ice cream on the top.
It's said that shaved ice was the dessert of Japanese royalty all the way back to the Heian Empire (794-1185). In fact, shaved ice is also mentioned in Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book (completed in 1002,) perhaps the oldest and most famous book of lists ever written. While Kyoto may be the ultimate destination for kakigori, if ChikaLicious is any indication, Japanese shaved ice may be coming to a bakery near you.
--Tracy Schneider
craft on June 04, 2009 at 11:31 AM
missing last part of your thought.
Kristin @ Iowa Girl Eats on June 04, 2009 at 01:18 PM
Ahh...the Japanese and putting beans in their desserts. I'll never fully understand it. I'll always remember the first watermelon ice cream popsicle I got in Tokyo and how confused I was when the watermelon seeds were in fact, beans!
PuffPuff01 on September 09, 2009 at 04:24 PM
Yeah, in a lot of places in Asia - red beans and red bean paste is sweetened and used in desserts.
max on August 15, 2011 at 10:09 PM
what is kakigori