More Than Kin

Before the enormous expedition (which there will eventually be more about, once I recover...), there was a smaller trip to the Hunter Valley. This visit was distinguished by large amounts of black, white, wine, cheese and general silliness. Another thing that stood out about the weekend was the sheer difficulty to get an ice cream.

Venturing through Pokolbin, a shop full of smelly cheese, snackish morsels and interesting condiments drew our collective eyes. It also had a large counter of gelato and ice cream, supplemented by an equally large freezer off to the side, displaying a range of other enticing flavours... including Kinder Suprise.

I don't quite know what it is, but there's something I love about Kinder Surprise (even the plain bars, without any surprises involved). And I had to try that ice cream. Well, I thought I did... inquiries about buying a tub of it to take back to the stoat / penguin lair were met with the response that that flavour was "just for display" and we couldn't buy any. Whether it was really a plastic imitation (unlikely, given how good it looked), or if they were just capriciously waiting for it to go slightly stale and not be the source of penguinlike avariciousness, we couldn't quite ascertain.

So, on the trip back to Sydney, we just had to venture past... to see if we were allowed any Kinder Surprise ice cream yet. Its availability on a quiet Monday morning was a welcome surprise better than all sorts of model racing cars and other miniature paraphenalia found in those little eggs...

Pictures: me (on an iPhone, so there is for once an excuse for some of the dodginess...)

And the verdict? Tasty, chocolatey, definitely something that I'd be quite happy to eat again (including for breakfast on a Monday morning). But not quite hollering Kinder Surprise at me. Although after that much of a build-up, it was always going to be a high bar to leap (slowly, full of ice cream) over!