Carbonated Water
炭酸水 is one of Niko’s favorite drinks. If you find niko at a desk or run into him at a conbini, chances are, he’ll be equipped with a bottle of 炭酸水。
「しゅわしゅわ苦手」is something I used to hear when I was growing up in Japan. しゅわしゅわ in this case is referring to carbonated drinks. And kids would express that they didn’t like drinking carbonated drinks.
It should be painful to drink it. That’s what I want from my 炭酸水. I wanted it to be painful to drink.
—Niko
Special Drinks
Does where you’re from have a specialty drink? I enjoy a good root beer float when I visit the U.S., or any local-made / home-made root beer or ginger beer from anywhere. For those of you who are not familiar, these are both soft drinks and non-alcoholic.
Melon-soda floats are a common soft-drink (could even be a dessert) that can be ordered at a lot of restaurants. You may see them on the menu as 「クリームソーダ」or cream soda. The commonly found melon soda doesn’t have any real melon in it so if you are allergic to melons, you can still experience the joy of the super-green fizzy drink!
Matcha Ice Cream
The hardest thing about going to an ice cream or a dessert shop is CHOOSING. The options are too great. It’s so hard to choose which one you want! So, my solution to this is: bring friends with, and share all the flavors 😆
What is ムースソフト？？Mousse turns out to be made of milk and sugar and cream mostly. And air lol
Don’t throw matcha powder in plain greek yogurt. ‘Tis not a good time. It makes the super plain yogurt taste even more plain somehow.
Kinako is my favorite edible powder (Chie). Common ways you’ll encounter kinako out in the wild are: きなこ揚げパン、きなこもち、きな粉かけアイス。Try looking those up!
More Ice Cream Names
More Ice Cream on the ランキング
- 雪見だいふく
- モナカ（it had been a long time since I had one so I kept saying monako, oops)
- ジャージーソフト
Frozen Yogurt vs. Ice Cream
What are the differences? Is there a difference? Niko uses it interchangeably, but uhh, they are not the same, right? If you are an expert Ice Cream or Frozen Yogurt person, please come educate us about them ^^
Super Cup Ice Cream
スーパーカップ — a large cup of ice cream found at your local conbini with apparently a whole bunch of different flavors.
There are some really interesting ones I saw when I looked it up. Would be fun to try the ティラミス tiramisu flavored one!
Do you eat ice cream when it’s cold out? Would you try getting ice cream out of a vending machine?
ぼんこつ車 — old, beat-up car
Lavender flavor is underrated! Have you ever tries lavender flavored things? It is delicious ^^
Destination ソフト
There are some really interesting ones out there like:
- green onion-sprinkled
- soy-sauce
- premium brown sugar
- kinako
- plum
- black sesame seeds
- and more!
What is the most interesting flavor of ice cream you’ve had? Mine might actually be the coconut curry flavored scoop from Salt & Straw. It was not bad!
Sweet Potato
スイートポテト is a food (sweets) that uses sweet potatoes as one of the main ingredients.
芋 — potato. There are so many different types of potatoes in Japan: ジャガイモ、長芋、里芋、さつまいも、 are just some of the common potato names you might hear.
When you google translate “brain freeze,” it gives back 思考力が低下する。Which is “decreased ability to think.” Um, I guess it’s technically not wrong? haha but just another example of translation tools used for going from english → Japanese or vise versa is rough sometimes.
Thanks for listening all the way to the end.
Come say hi in our discord and tell us all about your favorite ice cream ^^
Challenge Mode
Come check out the Not-So Laid-Back all-Japanese episode on the same topic!