The dessert of the summer has to be ice cream, and you have to give it kudos. Refreshing, sweet and always icy cold during Los Angeles’ worst heat waves, it promises a respite from the sweltering temperatures. But it’s not the only frozen indulgence to take over town. As the city hosts an impressive meld of cultures, Asian frozen desserts are a deviation from the typical ice cream that offers the same relief and might be a treat you’ve never tried.
Oakobing
Location: 3300 W 6th St. Unit 2, Los Angeles, CA 90020
Hours: 1 p.m. — 11 p.m.
Korean bingsu is making its rounds on social media — and for good reason. Made out of finely shaved frozen milk, bingsu is typically topped with fruit, condensed milk, red beans and rice cakes. Oakobing is the best of the bunch, presenting a viral mango melon shaved ice, composed of thinly shredded mango-flavored milk loaded into half of a hollowed melon. Decorated with spheres of melon, it’s by far the most visually appealing dessert on the menu, but their black sesame and injeolmi are also stellar choices for the strong, nutty flavors. Whatever you decide, you’ll get a bingsu with such a fine texture that it melts like ice cream on the tongue with none of the heaviness.
Salju Dessert
Location: 35 Valley Blvd. Suite B, Alhambra, CA 91801
Hours: 12 p.m. — 12 a.m. on Wednesdays through Mondays and 6 p.m. — 12 a.m. on Tuesdays
Salju Dessert in the San Gabriel Valley is one of the few spots that serve Taiwanese snow ice. Similar to Korean bingsu, it is assembled from a large, frozen cylinder of flavored milk that gets shredded by a snow machine into feathery towers of icy goodness. With flavors like mango and lychee and a topping range from the classic red beans and egg pudding to gummy bears and rainbow sprinkles, there’s something for everyone to try, traditional or not. They serve other treats like crepes and teas, but you’re really here for the snow, which turns the miserable SoCal summer heat into a more bearable experience.
Tonchin LA
Location: 5665 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038
Hours: 5:30 p.m. — 10 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays, 5:30 p.m. — 1 a.m. on Fridays, 12 p.m. — 1 a.m. on Saturdays and 12 p.m. — 9 p.m. on Sundays
Japanese kakigori, made of finely flaked ice and topped with sweet syrups, is difficult to come by in LA, but it can be found with a little bit of digging. This acclaimed ramen spot is one of the few establishments serving up the dessert that is popular in Japan, and it comes in four flavors: matcha, coffee, mango and strawberry. What makes kakigori different from its Korean and Taiwanese counterparts is that it is made out of pure ice instead of a flavored base before being sweetened by a typically fruit-themed topping, all finished with condensed milk. Instead of booking a flight to Tokyo, get yourself a bowl of ramen and a shaved ice to sweeten the deal this summer.
Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice — LA
Location: 4661 1, 2 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Hours: 1 p.m. — 7 p.m. on weekdays and 12 p.m. — 8 p.m. on weekends
As you can probably glean from the name, Ululani’s originated in the state of Hawaii, but we are lucky that they’ve touched down in California. What makes Hawaiian shave ice so special is its fine texture, the scoop of ice cream such as the delicious macadmia nut, of which the macadamia nut is excellent, the drizzle of condensed milk, a dollop of haupia cream and a sprinkle of li hing mui, which is a dried plum powder that adds a slightly sour twist. Ululani’s offers fun flavors from “Tiger’s Blood” to “Wedding Cake,” but the best are the simplest — mango, coconut, peach and calamansi.
Bake & Chè
Location: 9729 Bolsa Ave., Westminster, CA 92683
Hours: 9 a.m. — 10 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. — 10:30 p.m. on weekends
Chè is a Vietnamese dessert soup made with coconut milk and includes a wide array of possible toppings, like mung beans, red bean, jackfruit, longan, palm seeds and pandan jelly. While the term itself encompasses an endless amount of varieties, you can find a few versions at Bake & Che, like their simpler pandan grass jelly or the more diverse “House Special,” which contains three kinds of beans and durian, all piled in one large cup and doused in a generous amount of sweetened milk. Each of them is served cold to clear the sweat from your brow.
Cafe 86
Location: 4915 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock, CA 90041
Hours: 12 p.m. — 9 p.m.
Filipino halo-halo is a dessert that translates to “mix-mix,” a sentiment that is echoed in its diverse contents — a base of shaved ice with either evaporated or condensed milk, topped with a miscellany of sweetened beans such as red beans and mung beans, as well as various fruits, with jackfruit being the most common. Similar to Vietnamese chè, it also comes with jelly, which is typically nata de coco tinted in colorful shades of red and green. Cafe 86’s version comes with coconut jelly, jackfruit, boba, frosted flakes and then topped off with ube ice cream and a slab of flan.
Simpang Asia
Location: 10433 National Blvd. #2, Los Angeles, CA 90034
Hours: 11:30 a.m. — 10 p.m.
Indonesian cendol is popular in Southeast Asia. Made up of coconut milk, palm sugar and pandan jelly, which is made of rice flour sliced into noodles, it’s yet another distinctive iced dessert that is rarely a standalone dish. But it can be found at Simpang Asia, a popular and authentic Indonesian restaurant here in LA. With the pandan jelly providing a novel texture to the sweetened drink, cendol is a deep cut that garners relatively little talk in California but deserves a spot on your seasonal dessert bucket list, if such a list exists, which it should.
Noya Kitchen Restaurant Biryani Kabab & Curry House. Bangladeshi Indian Pakistani Halal Food
Location: 4204 W 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90020
Hours: 11 a.m. — 10 p.m.
Another difficult to locate dessert is falooda, popular in South Asia and made of milk, vermicelli noodles and rose syrup. The creamy dessert drink is popular at Noya Kitchen and is made of rose milk, sabudana or sago instead of vermicelli, coconut jelly, ice cream and banana. If you’re a fan of rose-flavored treats, which are popular in South Asia and the Middle East, then the strikingly pink falooda might be the dessert of the summer for you.
The LA area is an impressive melting pot of culture, which makes each and every one of these treats easily accessible to anyone within its vicinity. No matter which spot on this list you stumble into, you’re bound to come across a dessert to save you from the scalding SoCal summer.
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Featured Image via Adobe Stock
