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I just heard this colloquial sentence on YouTube:

Mais je suis sûr que je peux lui rendre le sourire si je l’emmène manger un parfait arc-en-ciel, t'en fais pas !

You cannot eat a "rainbow" to begin with. The possibility of "poisson arc-en-ciel" occurred to me, too, but there is no particular mention of any fish, either.

Then I wonder... Could it be about eating various fruits and vegetables of different colours as diverse as those of a rainbow?

enter image description here

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    I am not familiar with this pastry, but I wonder if this person did not mean un parfait (noun, not adjective), which is a certain kind of cake. But I have no idea how it could be arc-en-ciel... Maybe there is a variant where the parfait is made with various fruits, as you suggest ? I only know the parfaits made with vanilla or chocolate... – Greg Dec 28 '17 at 19:30
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    Rainbow parfaits – Luke Sawczak♦ Dec 28 '17 at 20:15
  • Some context would probably help this sentence is pretty confusing. – user15796 Dec 28 '17 at 20:51
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    It would be "elle". You could perfectly say Je l'emmène manger. Mais moi je ne mangerai rien, j'ai déjà mangé. – Greg Dec 29 '17 at 11:30
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    @LukeSawczak 770 cals... (haha) We'd be hard pressed to find that type of colourful sweets in Japan! No wonder the phrase "manger un parfait arc-en-ciel" didn't make sense to me. :D – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens Dec 30 '17 at 16:17
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Given the comment thread, it seems safe to offer this reparsing, owed entirely to Greg:

un parfait « arc-en-ciel » → un parfait couleur arc-en-ciel

There are various dishes called a « parfait », but the dessert glacé (also see more detailed English version) seems like the most likely one.

Searching for « parfait arc-en-ciel » suggests that the rainbow could be achieved either by dye or by using something like your fruit hypothesis to constitute the « parfum » of the parfait.

Dye

Fruit

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  • Hi, Luke. I'm curious -- Does Starbucks in Canada offer sweets and drinks with glaring colours like these? :D – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens Apr 7 '18 at 6:52

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