Baskin-Robbins is known better over here in Japan as '31 Ice Cream', in keeping with the brand's original '31 flavours' on offer. (Heaven knows just how many flavours there are now... hundreds...)
Every month, a different ice cream flavour gets added to the menu for a short time only. Neon Monster is the limited-edition creation for Halloween 2016. Strangely, only on sale until the 30th - the day before Halloween proper.
You might be wondering why anyone would eat ice cream in late October. Well, on the 20th it hit 27 degrees outside. It's still very VERY much ice cream weather over here.
I did tell a bit of a fib back there - this is apparently a sorbet. And it looks nothing like the photo.
In my line of work, you come to understand the difference between advertising and reality. This, however, is taking the piss.
There's almost none of the yellow-green ice cream. Where purple only seems to highlight the scoop in the promo, it seems to fill most of my cup. And that's definitely not dark green, either. That is blue. Electric blue.
The mix of colours really reminded me of a Zap lolly, though. Anyone remember those?
That strong memory conditioned my brain to immediately expect toffee/custard flavour from this sorbet. And that's not what I got - it's fruity fizz. The purple is melon, the 'green' (looks way more blue, I tell you) is grape, and the yellow-green is soda. Designed to confuse your taste buds as well as your brain.
Seeing as BR isn't in the habit of selling their ice cream in the dark, I was under the impression they had blacklight boxes ready on the counter. So you can see your scoop glow.
There was no box at the branch I visited.
In fact, apart from one promo photo (which I've already used) there was barely any indication that the ice cream should glow at all.
For longer than a rational person should, I debated using my handbag. It's super dark in there, bound to work. No sooner had I lowered the ice cream cup into the bag, someone started staring at me. I took the cup back out of my handbag.
Nothing for it but to just finish the sorbet. They were all quite strong flavours, the grape especially. I wasn't expecting realistic fruit tastes... and I didn't get them, so there you go. Having soda mixed in did create some fizz too, it was kind of refreshing.
Verdict: 7/10. The spookiest thing about it is that they didn't promote the novelty factor.