GariGariKun: Not Just For Kids

A longtime ice bar popular for kids and nostalgic for adults, GariGariKun is probably a familiar name. You can find their fruit, soda, and melon soda flavors in iceboxes all over Japan during summer.

It's fitting that as the Akagi brand's GariGariKun celebrated it's 40 year anniversary this year (2021), I finally tried it.

Spoiler: I didn't try the soda flavor.

The thing is, this ice bar is famous for trying really weird new flavors, which I love. They have had spaghetti and cream of corn soup flavors. Ew.

Last summer, a coworker told me that the seasonal mint chip GariGariKun was really good. That wasn't even tempting to me. Same with anything soda or melon flavored. I had just never been interested to try an ice bar that was marketed towards kids.

(Apparently they now have Otona GariGariKun, for fancier flavors, like golden pineapple, strawberry, and kiwi. These retail at 100 yen each and contain real fruit juice. The current flavors are listed on the brand's Japanese website.)

Skip ahead to this summer. I picked up a Black chocolate bar for myself (made by the same company) one evening and saw the seasonal Kyushu mikan GariGariKun with Kumamon on it. I didn't think my husband would complain no matter what kind of ice cream bar I brought him, plus he loves mikan. I thought it might be kind of nostalgic for him.

So I tried a bite.

It was really soft, to my surprise. I mean the name GariGari means crunchy, so I thought it would have a more solid texture. (It may have been that our freezer hadn't gotten the ice bar back to it's usual frozen self yet.) It was nostalgic for me, bringing back memories of orange popsicles and creamsicles, which I liked as a kid.

This has started a bad habit.

Next I got a couple more of the mikan flavor since we liked it.

Then I got a couple of the ume flavor.

For anyone not used to ume flavor, this might not be a good pick.

In a happy kind of way, at first I just made the sour face.

Then I kind of loved it. Umeboshi was an acquired taste for me, but now it's a summer essential. This flavor, chosen by popular vote, ended up being super sweet, sour and refreshing.

My husband brought up the obvious: that it's like a kakigoori in ice bar form. I hadn't really considered that, but the texture and flavor choices really are like shaved ice. That was the company's original concept to be exact.

Next I found a slightly more expensive (maker price 140 yen) seasonal flavor. Rich Salt Chinsuko which sounds summery as it's the traditional Okinawan souvenir cookie. It's made with Okinawan salt and has cookies inside. I also realized there are a few different designs for the packaging of each flavor. This flavor has GariGariKun as an Okinawan shiisaa.

This one is on another level of so good. It's more milky and the salty cookie taste reminds me a little bit of cookie dough ice cream.

Now that I know that I like these, I'll be watching for what they come up with next.