Haagen-Dazs winter limited ice-cream (JAPAN)

Merry be-lated Christmas everyone. 

It has been once in a while since I've post as I've been very busy with classes. And.. Thank to my stupidness, today is the worst day in a long while for me, I went to the nearest convenient store to search for something to brighten my days. Thankfully, I found exactly two cups of Haagen-Dazs to make that happen. 

Now, this is Haagen-Dazs new Special Edition's "Opera flavor". This cup of ice-cream is special alright, as it costed me 420 yen. If I haven't been so intrigued with whether it would be quite cake-like, or ice-cream like, I would have never purchased it. The price is outrageous in my opinion.

 After peeling off the seal, this is what you get. So far, so good. I love how it is exactly like the picture on the lid, down to the sprinkles of gold. This shiny black layer is made from coffee syrup. It was on a bitter side, which is a good combination for the sweet buttercream ice-cream.

While the bottom part is the chocolate sauce, which wasn't too sweet. I think overall the three layer was a great combination. It really did reminded me of Opera cake. The only thing I can really comment on is my preference for more chocolate sauce on the bottom layer. 

My second cup of indulgent was the "mascarpone strawberry" flavor. 

I was really happy with this flavor, and think that they should make it a permanent flavor. I could taste a tad of cherry brandy in it. There were lots of strawberry pieces in the ice-cream as well, which was very pleasing. I hate eating ice-cream, which has "strawberry" on the label, yet there is no hint of strawberry in it, only to see it through the pink color.

 It's very similar to the brand's original strawberry ice-cream flavor, with a twist, the cherry brandy. Definitely an adult strawberry ice-cream. This was around half the price of the Opera flavor.

Lawson's Cheesecake (limited edition)

Recently, I have been having a trouble adjusting to the summer in Japan. During winter, I've moved to another apartment, and this new place did not come with air-con in the bedrooms. For winter, it was fine because I own electric blanket, heater(s), and thick duvet. However, for summer, I only have an electric fan!! I literally am dying in the heat day and night. The good thing is I will be heading home soon (HALLELUJAH AIR-CON), and from now till then, I will be in a summer session class everyday from morning till late afternoon, so at least I won't have to suffer from the heat. Anyway....

After watching the CM of Lawson's Cheesecake (ぎゅっとクリームチーズ) for countless of times, I finally drag myself to the nearest Lawson, and brought two pieces of this heavenly delights. 

For a 180 yen a piece, I think it was something that I can see myself buy again and again. The combination between sticky, a tad chewy, sweet biscuit base, and a creamy cream cheese cream, made the whole cake very thick and smooth. It wasn't surprising when I read that (apparently) the top part contain more than 50% of cream cheese.

There is also a chocolate cheesecake flavor that I have yet to try. However, I am not sure if I will ever try them because over a few days of observation, (coming back home empty handed because the cheesecake were sold out) there would be a few left over of the chocolate flavor, while the original flavor were long gone.

Sadly, Lawson is only selling the cheese cake for 21 days, (from July 31st till August 20th) so for those who wants to give it a try, you better hurry up!

2012/10/26 UPDATES: Seems that these cheesecakes are so popular that they're now available for an unlimited amount of time at every Lawson stores in Japan.