Wiz Bang Bar Smith Teamaker Big Hibsicicle Sherbert: In the Pine Street Market, an indoor food hall in downtown Portland, is a soft serve and sundae bar named Wiz Bang from Salt & Straw, the ever-popular ice cream shop that has branched outside of the city to several LA and San Francisco locations. Central to Salt & Straw's success is their ability to strike a chord between the familiar and unexpected, with comforting flavors that are also intriguing and sometimes daring. The soft serve that I ordered, the Smith teamaker big hibiscicle sherber... (read more) 4.0/5.0
recommended softserve icecream portland saltandstraw wizbangbar smith teamaker big hibsicicle sherbert 4.0
Gott's Roadside Chocolate and Vanilla Softserve: After a long rainy week, I was craving a warm baked dessert and thought for sure I could find one in the Ferry Building on my way home. Unfortunately, I wasn't interested in cupcakes, leftover bread, or gluten-free desserts, and the line for Humphrey Slocombe was far too long. I noticed that Gott's Roadside had a sign for Strauss Creamery, whose yogurt I had recently enjoyed, so i decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, I realized afterward that their soft serve isn't made using anything... (read more) 2.0/5.0
icecream softserve sanfrancisco ferrybuilding gottsroadside chocolate vanilla 2.0
Cheeseboard Buffalo Milk Soft Serve Ice Cream: Regrettably, I ordered the swirl of chocolate and plain milk flavors, and while the texture was smooth and creamy, the chocolate had a generic taste that masked the more mild milk flavor. While it was higher quality, this ice cream did remind me a bit of the little cups of vanilla and chocolate ice cream you ate with a wooden spoon as a kid. Not bad per se, but not great either. 2.5/5.0
icecream cheeseboard buffalo milk soft serve ice cream 2.5 softserve
Uji Purple Potato Soft Serve: Returning to this small ice cream shop on Shattuck to sample additional soft serve flavors, I tried their seasonal purple potato ice cream, which came in a lovely shade of lavender. The ice cream had a rich milk flavor with only a hint of potato at the end. Given that the tofu, black sesame, and matcha flavors from Uji are all vastly superior (I've sampled all three flavors by now), I wouldn't recommend the purple potato ice cream, but it's decent. 3.0/5.0
icecream japanese berkeley uji purple potato soft serve 3.0 ujitime softserve
IKEA Soft Serve: Just like their furniture, IKEA's $1 soft serve is economical, minimalist, and good enough to get by. 3.0/5.0
icecream ikea soft serve 3.0 softserve
Morgenstern's Tour Pine'Our soft serve: One of my favorite chefs, Paul Liebrandt, recently collaborated with the LES ice cream shop Morgenstern's and introduced a series of special soft serve flavors over the course of a month. I sampled the last one, a swirl of strawberry hibiscus sorbet and sunchoke ice cream. The texture of the soft serve was excellent, and I especially loved the sharpness of the sorbet. The sunchoke ice cream was fine, but more of a neutral base for the sorbet. The entire dessert was topped with toasted hazel... (read more) 4.0/5.0
recommended frozen sorbet strawberry hibiscus sunchoke icecream morgensterns tour pine'our soft serve 4.0 softserve