Review: Lidl Gelatelli strawberry and mandarin slushie
At the Lidl supermarket, I spotted a box of the Gelatelli strawberry and mandarin slushie with four plastic cups, which reminded me of similar ones I saw in a supermarket in Barcelona. I wanted to get it back then, but nobody in the group was interested except me and I didn't know how to prepare it, as I cannot read the instructions in Spanish. Now that I bought it here in the Netherlands, I know that it wasn't as difficult as I thought. The cups can be easily separated (not like certain yogurt cups that you could accidentally rip part of the lid off of other cups, while you try to get one out of the 6-pack), the lid can be removed without too much strength and without scissors (be warned: the lid might come off from the pressure of temperature changes and leak in your grocery bag or freezer), and you don't even need tools like long spoons or even a straw. If you have a microwave, you can heat it up for a few minutes, or else, you can also let it defrost for two hours in the fridge or outside. After letting it melt a bit, you can use you hands to crush the ice by holding the cup and putting pressure on the flexible exterior of the cup, while leaving the lid on. After crushing it enough, you can remove the lid and drink it right out of the cup.
The strawberry flavor slushie was what I expected it to taste like, an icy strawberry lemonade made by mixing a sweet strawberry syrup with water. The flavor is not that special, but I like the icy texture with larger ice crystals. The mandarin flavor was a pleasant surprise, as it tasted like a sweet orange with a hint of mandarin, which didn't have the characteristic bitterness of a mandarin. It is also slightly sour and not too sweet like the strawberry flavor. After having people refusing to take the strawberry flavor and stealing my mandarin flavored slushie, I discovered that it tastes quite good if you mix the two flavors. After crushing the ice, use a spoon to scoop up half of it and place it in a small bowl. Use the spoon to scoop up half of the other cup and place it in your cup. Afterwards, pour the slushie from the small bowl in the other cup. It creates a beautiful gradation like in an exotic cocktail. The flavors also works out quite well, as the sourness of the mandarin is a bit more mild and the strawberry flavor isn't that overly sweet. There was also a lemon and coconut flavor slushie at the Lidl supermarket, which also sounds nice, if you mix them.