Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The review that wasn't: Tropicana Orange with Rare Cheese Flavor

Hey guys! In the latter half of February, Pillow and I were journeying around Japan, which included going out to Kyoto/Osaka and back to Tokyo before returning to Yokosuka. I was pretty determined to do a special On Location "episode" of Are Ya Thirsty?, but as it turns out, the universe did not want me to do that. Allow me to explain...

In Osaka, we met up with our awesome friend John and hung out in Ame-mura and Den-den Town, strolling the streets and seeing the sights, as it were.



I was on the look-out for a superb soda (or a sucktacular one) to review, and was coming up rather empty handed (c'mon, Japan! Why am I suddenly at a loss here?!) until we saw it.

AHHHHH

...Wait...



That's right. Your eyes did not deceive you. It says:

Tropicana Orange with Rare Cheese Flavor



Upon seeing this, we all instantly recoiled, as something about the very phrasing alerted our lizard brains to the horror. Eeeeugh! CHEESE FLAVOR? In a BEVERAGE!? That has got to be the worst thing ever, right? And "rare" cheese, at that?



Our mutual reaction was enough to make me pull out 150 yen and plunk it into the machine. As I reached for it, we placed fake bets on whether or not you were going to have to shake it — there's a handful of soft drinks in Japan that are not unlike jelly and have to be shaken up in order to be ingested — and the very idea of that made my stomach curdle. What would the consistency be like?? A yogurt drink?? Fruit on the bottom, cheese on top? Hugggghh, unappetizing! As it turns out, John inspected the bottle and informed us that no, we were NOT to shake it. Alright, then.

We'd planned to sit down somewhere and share the horror, but as the night progressed, we kinda forgot about it. Maybe that was on purpose, maybe it was just 'cause we were busy being big nerds and looking at robot toys. In any case, by the time we parted ways, we'd realized we hadn't partaken in and orange and rare cheese flavor, so we planned to do it the next day, when we'd be meeting up again.

And then I forgot to bring it.



Upon returning from our dinner with John and his ladyfriend and our subsequent outting through Gion at night (which was very lovely and almost deserted...!), Pillow and I resolved to try it.

And then forgot.



The next morning, we had to get up and check out of the hotel, and because that 11 AM check out time always seems to come SO SOON, we were scrambling to get out on time. We were certain we'd remembered everything, having done a thorough sweep of the grounds before turning in our legit metal key (!!) and leaving to wander until our train time. Afterwards, we returned to the hotel to pick up our luggage that they'd kindly held for us, and headed to the train station to ride the shinkansen back to Tokyo.

Ten minutes into our ride, I realized something:

We'd left the bottle of Orange and Rare Cheese in the fridge!!



NUTSO!

So, there you have it. Is it possible that it was just such an abhorrent flavor combination that I couldn't even bring myself to try it? Sure. But I like to believe that The Universe decided that it should not be ingested by my friends, family, or myself, and caused me to forget to remember to try Orange and Rare Cheese.

It gets an F for existing. But I would have tried it for your entertainment pleasure. Really.

Love ya,
Sarah

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