Powder Matcha Shaved Ice: This Taiwanese shaved ice shop on Divisadero in San Francisco has a variety of Asian flavors like black sesame, matcha, and Vietnamese coffee. Having had their excellent black sesame on a previous trip, I opted for matcha, which was shaved into thin, overlapping ribbons. While I remembered the black sesame shaved ice being remarkably light, this one texturally was more dense, with the ice cream packing together less than 1/3 of the way through. The matcha flavor, though, is very good and ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Powder Ube shaved ice with mochi and condensed milk: This is the third flavor I've had from Powder, a Taiwanese shaved ice shop in San Francisco. The first, black sesame, was excellent, with a light texture but creamy flavor. The second, matcha, had a great green tea flavor but was more dense in texture. This last one was, unfortunately, the worst texturally, which is apparent from just the image itself - the starchy potato may have made it harder to achieve the same airy consistency that the black sesame ice had. Ube is a seasonal summer ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Saigon Bakery Che Ba Mau: I’ve always been curious about the array of brightly colored pre-made beverages / desserts at Saigon Bakery in the Tenderloin District of SF and decided to finally try one. This one was a pastel mint green color, but others were a muted violet. They are typically covered with saran wrap, even though there is a plastic lid on the cup. The drink itself has an aggressively sweet coconut flavor, and on the bottom is a mix of chewy and soft textures, including green gelatinous strips (similar ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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San Francisco Hometown Creamery Corn ice cream: This ice cream shop in Inner Sunset claims to be the first to make small batch ice cream completely in house in San Francisco. It has a small town neighborhood vibe, with varnished wood beams and hand-painted murals that are more charming than artistic. Their seasonal corn ice cream had a pastel daisy-yellow color and tasted mostly of cream rather than sweet corn. Its texture was icy, with frozen hard bits or corn throughout (even those pieces did not have an identifiable corn flavor). Based... (read more) 2.5/5.0
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Smitten Salted Caramel Ice Cream: The two things I dislike about the Bay Area are 1) almost everything is overpriced, and 2) people see technology as the solution to everything. If there were any type of snack that represented these fundamental problems, it would be Smitten. At Smitten, ice cream is made to order using liquid nitrogen, which, in theory, freezes ice cream faster and produces smaller ice crystals and, as a result, a smoother texture. Because each flavor is produced on its own machine, Smitten can only carry... (read more) 2.5/5.0
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Swensen’s Lychee ice cream: Swensen’s is a historic ice cream shop in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood. Opened in 1948, it now has locations around the world. I don’t find myself in this neighborhood very often, so the last time I was there, I finally got a chance to try it. They offer a bevy of flavors, mostly traditional favorites, but I got a scoop of lychee. Unfortunately, the ice cream had an overly icy, almost clumpy texture, and though it had sizable pieces of lychee throughout, the moisture content of ... (read more) 2.5/5.0
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