[flippyshark]

I will happily chime in here. I just had a standard snow cone (or Sno-Kone as the case may have been) at Sea World, and it was not even in the same ballpark. (Nor was it in the same theme park. Snirk...)

Firstly, the ice in a standard snow cone is coarse, like little pellets of ice. You have to crunch them with your teeth. It's unpleasant, except perhaps for those people who like to chew ice. The ice in Kaki-Gori is much more like actual snow. It's soft and kind of fluffy, not as mushy as daquiri ice, but not hard and crunchy like the above-mentioned pellet cone.

Then there is the syrup - my Sea World treat tasted like Kool-aid. Kaki-Gori has much nicer flavors. (tangerine, melon, cherry, there's one other that I am forgetting.) The Kaki-Gori flavorings are sweet but flavorful.

I am guessing that somewhere, there may be something comparable in a mall - it would simply be a matter of getting the right kind of ice-pulverizing machine (the one at Epcot looks like a piece of bar equipment) and some Italian syrups. Of course, no mall is going to provide the tranquil Japanese garden surroundings which add immeasurably to the whole Kaki-Gori experience.