SGV: Creative Flavors at Big Softee Ice Cream
Big Softee – mini sundae
I checked out Big Softee this week and was enchanted. I loved the signage and all the cool retro nods. I even saved my red spoon and will put it in my Tiki mug of swizzle sticks. Later I found out they had swizzle sticks in mind when they designed the spoons!
Big Softee is an ice cream shop. They want to serve the neighborhood and they don’t want to play into the instagram food genre. So their stuff actually does taste good.
I had a mini sundae, a Valentine’s day special, which included Tahitian vanilla, both strawberry and chocolate syrups and housemade strawberry shortcake crumble. The crumble reminded me of my favorite strawberry shortcake bars as a kid.
Growing up in Los Angeles, one of my favorite things was going to Farrell’s and getting those huge sundaes. Since I figured out I’m mildly lactose intolerant, I don’t usually go for those toothache inducing things so getting a scoop here and there is just perfect.
We sampled all the available flavors and my faves were the tofu flower (tofu faa for you Cantonese speakers), taro coconut and hojicha. Big Softee changes out flavors fairly often- every three weeks or so and there’s always one vegan flavor (yay, perfect for those who are lactose intolerant or vegan). This week’s vegan flavor is the mango jasmine.
“burnt tofu”
Other non-dairy options include the burnt tofu. It’s local tofu that’s been caramelized and it’s beautiful. However, I would love to see the “ginger steamed milk” pudding on the menu. We got a special sample and that’s just amazing. In Hong Kong, it’s made with buffalo milk and fresh ginger juice. Big Softee uses a higher protein milk to achieve the same result.
toppings
Besides the flavors that capture my childhood perfectly, I loved all the toppings options. These are so innovative. The sesame caramel has a little hot chili oil. The brown butter blondies are better known as Hawaiian butter mochi!
I’ll be keeping an eye on their instagram to see what new flavors they came up with. I hope to catch their salted egg flavor soon.
128 S Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, CA 91754
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