Taiyaki is a delicious Japanese street food. A fish shaped pastry stuffed with filling like read bean paste & custard. In the warmer months the taiyaki are also stuffed with soft serve ice cream. This street food has become popular in the USA with dedicated taiyaki ice cream spots popping up, and we finally have a shop in Alaska that serves this delectable treat. Softer opened at the end of December in the Diamond center food court.
I went to check them out in February, and the taiyaki were fresh, crispy, and had a decent amount of filling. Now the taiyaki wasn't the same consistency as the ones I had in Japan, but it's not really fair to compare things in Alaska to their country of origin. The texture wasn't 100% correct, but it was pretty nicely crispy, and not overly chewy. I had heard from a few other people that when they went the texture wasn't correct & too chewy so consistency may be a bit of an issue, but they are a new business to that can be rectified.
The soft serve ice cream was also very good. I ordered 2 "upside down" Taiyaki ice creams which comes with choice of 2 toppings. You can just order a Taiyaki filled with ice cream which doesn't come on a cup, or the Taiyaki pastry on its own without ice cream. If you're not feeling the Taiyaki you can also just get the soft serve ice cream, a milkshake, or a snow bowl (this looks like a variation of bingsu).
I ordered chocolate soft serve with a Nutella filled Taiyaki topped with sprinkles, and a matcha/chocolate swirl soft serve with an ube filled Taiyaki topped with Oreo & graham cracker crumbs. The portion size on the soft serve was good for the price ($7). The chocolate ice cream was standard chocolate soft serve, but I really liked the Nutella taiyaki. The matcha ice cream actually had a strong, and not overly artificial matcha tea flavor. Next time I won't get it swirled with chocolate as the chocolate overpowered the matcha. I don't know if I'd get the ube filled taiyaki again. The ube filling was pretty artificial so it's not my preference. The toppings were also fairly sparse, but that doesn't really matter to me. Overall it's a great treat.
Service was quick when we went. There was no line, and you just order at a kiosk & the person makes what you order. It's located right in the mall food court by the ice rink so if you're looking for ambiance it's not really going to be this place.
I definitely will be back to get some Taiyaki ice cream again, and maybe try their snow bowls. Excited to have something different in Anchorage! This place is definitely a good spot next time you want some soft serve ice cream. read more