if you’re walking quickly between sydney town hall and the cinemas, you might almost miss, just next to the KFC, the great vertical slots in the slate grey walls of the new city building on the corner. but if you slip into one of these and walk down the narrow passageway, you will find yourself in an atrium of still empty shopshells. it’s dark, though not gloomy, and the harsh sounds of the street are muffled. through the narrow shaft of the escalator well, a bright oasis of small things, colourful and twinkly, might catch your eye. here is the subterranean wonderland of the newish maxim supermarket, and currently one of my favourite places for a cheap treat in the city.

there is a comprehensive inventory of japanese confectionary — all manner of crunchy, chewy, gummy, marshmallowy, [random unexpected texturey] goodness. exotic yoghurty beverages. instant noodles and umami seasonings — liquid, flakey and gritty. and the main attraction, for me: the bank of freezers packed with row after row of single serve japanese (and korean) novelty ice creams.

here’s one on a stick, resembling — and tasting like — a wedge of watermelon. a couple over, a wafer shell in the shape of a corn cob, filled with corn ice cream. there are perhaps a dozen variations on the theme of green tea – red bean, and one of them might be an ice cream-filled mochi, just the right size for nestling in your hand until it softens to the right consistency. if it’s all too much, you might just go the way of a simple icy pole… peach flavour!

saturday, when it was hot, the kid got a lurid mango popsicle, with little cubes of mango jelly embedded throughout. the comic drawings of hula-dancing mangos on the wrapper surely clinched the deal.

i got this handsome tub, in equal parts for the packaging and for the flavour, which was annin tofu, that milky almond jelly pudding you might find in a chinese restaurant. it was delicious — light and creamy, and not as sweet or frightening as you’d expect from something whose ingredients list begins: glucose syrup, sugar, palm oil, whole milk…

mmm… wholesome.