We have just finished our katte don, our bowls of “choose your own sashimi” toppings on vinegared sushi rice. Still I’m not satisfied. I need something sweet.
“Let’s get some soft serve.”
The Kushiro Washo Ichiba market isn’t the first place one looks for ice cream, of course. We are here for our lunch and the shops offer a multitude of fresh and dried seafood, certainly. But there is a small poster on our table promising soft serve.
We can’t read Japanese but we locate the soft serve eventually, near where we had asked for directions earlier. One chocolate, one brown sugar caramel. Maybe the caramel soft serve is made from kokuto, a fine brown sugar made from Okinawan sugar cane.
“Which flavour would you like?”
Both, of course. We share and swap. You eat faster, as usual. Slowly or swiftly, every lick is a soft memory crafted together.