A parfait a day…
…probably won’t keep the doctor away but is still a great idea.
One of Okayama’s regional specialties is fruit. They’ve capitalized on this with a delicious dish: parfaits featuring whatever is in season, plus a healthy dollop of frozen, sugary goodness. The tourist information guide highlights six places offering parfaits, so naturally I made it my mission to visit them all and compare quality.
Without further ado, my winner for best parfait in Okayama: the peach parfait at Fruits-J in the Tenmaya Food Court. This is one of the simplest-looking parfaits I tried, but it hits all the right flavor notes. A peach smoothie makes up the base, topped with a thin layer of whipped cream, fresh white peaches, and peach sorbet. The finishing touch is supposed to be a cone of soft serve, but the machine was broken, so I got a cone of amaou (strawberry) gelato instead. I loved the variety of textures but single flavor focus. Peaches are one of the region’s two proudest crops; why not make them the star?
The runner-up (and it was a close race!) was the grape parfait at the Hotel Granvia near Okayama Station. This one was a full meal (seriously, I couldn’t have dinner that night). It came in two layers: a bottom layer with pione grape jelly, grape-studded plain ice cream, and vanilla ice cream, mixed up with muscat grapes and little bits of cake and brownie. The top half, kept separate by a circle of chocolate, was a tower of muscat and pione grapes held together by whipped cream and topped with grape-flavored (and grape-shaped) meringue. Again, I appreciate the commitment to a single fruit theme, and the execution was excellent: every portion was delicious.
If I were to pick a third choice, it would be the parfait from Art of Cooking Ikiya, a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with figs, pears, and grapes, plus Pocky and whipped cream. It tasted good but didn’t have the same depth of flavor as my favorites — too much plain ice cream and cream, not enough fruit (and the pears and figs were rather bland). I was not at all a fan of Cafe Antenna’s signature parfait, which boasted the most extraordinary presentation but ended up being a mishmash of lots of kinds of fruit and was heavy on sugary candy toppings, whipped cream, and an insipid melon ice cream. Still, I ordered it — more than I can say for the fruit parfaits at the Okayama Plaza Hotel and ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel. The entire bases of both were Jell-O, which looked simply unappetizing. At the Ana Crowne Plaza, I gave up and just requested tea, but at the Okayama Plaza Hotel I got the chocolate parfait instead. This proved a good decision: what’s not to like about chocolate ice cream, chocolate cereal, and brownie bits?
I’ve had a sweet time (pun definitely intended) in Okayama, but tomorrow I head back to California for my second and final year of school. So long, farewell, au revoir, sayonara!
