I really do have a soft spot for ice-cream, but I must say I am one who is particularly drawn towards affordable Japanese grab-and-go ice-creams; you know, the likes of Chateraise’s ice-creams — I even remembered those days as university student where I simply walked around the mall with one at hand. So I was pretty intrigued when I found out there is yet another brand offering cheap grab-and-go ice-creams these days — not really Japanese since it is by a relatively familiar brand called Paris Baguette that has its roots from Korea, but it is definitely close enough.
Having recently introduced their new range of products involving ice-cream, the ice-creams are only available in select outlets that has a dedicated chiller storing the lineup of products — locations that I have come across that I recall seeing the display fridge off the bat included the outlets at Northpoint City, 313@somerset, AMK Hub and JEM; pretty sure that there are more outlets than what I have listed that are carrying the ice-cream products. Whilst most of the flavours do sound a little run-of-the-mill despite the usage of more premium ingredients in general compared to the commercially-made ones usually found in supermarkets, it is the Real Watermelon Ice Bar that is the centre of attraction here. This undoubtedly sounds like a refreshing flavour, but the catch is in the description — Paris Baguette describes the Real Watermelon Ice Bar as “Non-sour strawberry sorbet ice cream with crunchy chocolate balls ending with melon at the end” according to its website and the description card in the display fridge labelling the product; one can literally say that no watermelons were harmed in the making of the Real Watermelon Ice Bar, which directly goes against the namesake. Kudos to Paris Baguette on this one though — the non-sour strawberry sorbet ice-cream carried a hint a very light hint of sweetness that was pretty refreshing; so much so that it tasted almost similar to watermelon. This, alongside with the texture of the icy sorbet, seeming replicated that refreshing crunch of biting through a juicy watermelon — something we thought was exceptionally genius especially coming out of a brand that is also largely seen as commercial as well. It doesn’t simply stop here — the addition of crunchy chocolate balls brings it closer to the actual fruit by replicating that texture one often associate with watermelon seeds; so much that a friend nearly spitted them out until realising that they were chocolate coated wafer balls when he tasted a hint of bittersweet chocolate from within. To make the Real Watermelon Ice Bar look just like a wedge of watermelon stuck with an ice-cream stick, Paris Baguette went with a layer of melon ice-cream at the bottom — the very same ice-cream used for their Melon Ice Bar which we had previously tried and thought was a very good alternative to McDonald’s limited-time only Yubari Melon soft-serve but creamier with the same intensity of melon sweetness. The inclusion of the melon ice-cream in the Real Watermelon Ice Bar is a sound move — somewhat replicates the skin of the watermelon that bears somewhat of a neutral, yet “melon-y” note. Overall, something which really exceeded my expectations of what Paris Baguette can deliver — they were really pushing the boundaries with this one and I must say I was left impressed; definitely going to check out their ice-cream freezers more frequently to see what sort of surprises lie in there if they were to ever release more varieties of ice-cream in time to come.
PS: Paris Baguette is currently running a promotion for their Real Watermelon Ice Bar that makes it a steal to get — whilst the listed price is $2.90 each, there is an ongoing 1-for-1 promotion only for the Real Watermelon Ice Bar till the end of June 2022. Not endorsed or sponsored by Paris Baguette here, but I honestly wouldn’t mind downing two of these at a go considering how oddly refreshing and watermelon-like they are especially when it comes to the non-sour strawberry sorbet here!
