The most expensive ice cream in Japan? Metallic soft serve frays the nerves of staff who make it

Sparkly soft serve gives you equally sparkly poops the next day.

As a writer who travels all over the country for work and play, our reporter Haruka Takagi gets to enjoy a lot of regional specialties, but she always makes sure to leave room in her belly for local ice creams.

Recently, on a trip to Shizuoka, Haruka came across a new local ice cream she was happy to make room for, but this one would be making more of a dent in her wallet than her stomach, as it’s reputed to be the most expensive soft serve in the country.

▼ The ice cream is the sold at the Jukkokutoge Rest House in Kannami Town, Shizuoka Prefecture.

The Jukkokutoge Rest House is located on the ridge of Minami Hakone, and it also serves as a cable car station. It’s been gaining popularity in recent years as a top spot for viewing Mt Fuji, but another reason to visit is to try the “Kinpaku Purachinahaku Konbi Soft Cream” (“Gold Leaf Platinum Leaf Combination Soft Serve”).

▼ Yes, this ice cream is served with real gold and platinum!

We’ve tried ice creams with gold leaf before, but we’ve never heard of anywhere that uses platinum leaf. Platinum is famously expensive, and this is reflected in the prices displayed on the ticket machine — there’s a gold leaf soft serve for 1,000 yen (US$7.51), but the platinum soft serve is three times that, at 3,000 yen, while the gold and platinum leaf combo is priced at 3,500 yen.

Naturally, Haruka ioted for the most expensive item at the ticket machine — the 3,500-yen Gold Leaf Platinum Leaf Combination Soft Serve.

The woman behind the counter smiled at Haruka when she handed her her ticket, but when she saw the order that was printed on it, her expression immediately changed to a serious one. The woman took out a wooden box and lifted out a pile of gold leaf and a pile of platinum leaf, all while maintaining her tense expression.

There was a sense of tension in the air as the employee used careful movements to lift one platinum leaf up to the ice cream with a small set of wooden tongs.

Then she lifted the gold leaf up to the surface of the ice cream, and it felt as if she and everyone around her was holding their breath, like it was the final tense moment of presentation on a TV show like Bake Off: The Professionals.

Once it was made, with the expensive layers of metal intact, everyone breathed a sigh of relief that nothing had torn or fallen and it was all smiles again. However, the pressure was now on Haruka to finish the ice cream without delay, as it was beginning to melt.

The lady who made this beauty had a fine touch, as too much pressure would’ve torn the fragile metal, and not enough pressure would’ve left it dangling in the wind. It’s understandable why the woman behind the counter looked so tense while she was making it, but thankfully it’s not something she has to go through every day, as they only get orders for the foil-wrapped soft serves about once a week.

▼ Haruka says that if she worked here, she would be praying that no orders for these soft serves would come in during her shift.

The ice cream glistened like expensive jewellery, and Haruka felt like a celebrity about to bite into something reserved only for the rich and famous.

It looked so unique and luxurious it seemed a shame to eat it, but that’s what she’d come here to do, so she took a bite…and was bestowed with golden lips.

Unfortunately, edible metal foil has no real taste or smell so it didn’t add much to the flavour of the ice cream. However, it made a big difference to the look and texture of the dessert. While the gold leaf was thin and barely noticeable, the platinum foil was surprisingly crispy and crunchy, with a slight chewiness to it. Haruka likened the mouthfeel to “eating a two-ply tissue that had been ripped into one ply”.

▼ This texture is due to the difference in foil thickness — you can see in the photo below that the platinum is thicker than the gold.

As this was a high-class soft serve that she’d probably never be able to afford again, Haruka took her time admiring the ice cream, snapping photos of it from lots of different angles, but after a few minutes, it began to melt at speed, forcing Haruka to pick up the pace.

She soon forgot about the precious foil as her focus turned to stopping the creamy dessert from spilling on the floor, and before she knew it, her 3,500-yen ice cream looked rather ordinary.

Oh well. Expensive treats don’t last forever, but at least she had those gold-and-platinum memories inside her, and loads of photos to last an eternity.

Plus, the soft serve had an added surprise waiting in store for her the next day, because when she went to the toilet, she was greeted by a poop so sparkly she wanted to take a photo of it to show us. We stopped short of letting her show the world her poop, though, so she drew this image of it instead.

▼ “I sparkled!” 

Now that she knows the aftereffects of eating gold and platinum leaf at the same time, Haruka can’t help but think these foils would make a perfect addition to the poop ice cream she ate in Yamanashi last month. That ice cream was served in a toilet bowl, so you’d get to see the sparkles while you’re eating it and afterwards. Now that’s a dessert that just keeps on giving!

Store information
Jukkokutoge Rest House / 十国峠レストハウス
Address: Shizuoka-ken, Tagata-gun, Kannami-cho, Kuwahara 1400-20
静岡県田方郡函南町桑原1400-20
Hours: 8:40 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Website

Photos © SoraNews24
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