Therese in Taiwan: Smoothie House 思慕昔

When we talk about shaved ice dessert, the first Philippine store that comes to my mind is Ice Monster. There was a time back in the summer of high school sophomore year when I spent a lot of time hanging out at an Ice Monster store because I loved eating their desserts.

On the other hand, I could also say that halo-halo (Filipino dessert) belongs to the same type of dessert because it is shaved (or crushed) ice topped with various ingredients. While I do like shaved ice, I prefer snowflake ice because the texture is finer and it melts in your mouth.

Do you know of snowflake ice? From what I've heard, it is a popular dessert that originated in the night markets of Taiwan. Over the years, stores have also been opened in other countries such as Japan, and the Philippines.

Although it's starting to get colder in Taipei, some of my classmates and I still decided to try this popular snowflake ice place found at Yongkang Street (永康街).

Yongkang Street is located in Daan District (大安區), so we rode the MRT brown line to Daan (大安), and we walked from there. There are actually 2 popular snowflake ice stores there - Smoothie House, and FnB Gourmet Group.

The latter is more popular in the sense that there is a back story about it. It was first opened by this couple that eventually got married. To cut the long story short, they eventually separated and the store is now being handled by the wife, I think. A lot of Taiwanese people know of this story. My classmate heard of it through one of her Taiwanese friends. When our teacher heard that we were looking for a snowflake ice place, she also told us of this story. LOL!

Since it was drizzling, we ended up choosing Smoothie House because of its indoor area. They also have a second floor. According to their website, the whole store can seat up to 100 people.
 

 
We decided to share 2 orders - Fresh Fruit Mix Snowflake Ice Mango Flavor (超級綜合芒果雪花冰) and the Matcha Green Tea with Red Bean Snowflake Ice (宇治抹茶雪花冰). Our orders were topped with panna cotta but you could also go with an ice cream topping.

Fresh Fruit Mix Snowflake Ice Mango Flavor | 150 NTD (PhP 225)

Matcha Green Tea with Red Bean Snowflake Ice | 140 NTD (PhP 210)

They were delicious! The snowflake ice melts in your mouth, and the fruits are fresh. The condensed milk that they used had just the right amount of sweetness - not too overpowering. All in all, we enjoyed it. We're gonna try the other store next time to see how theirs taste like.

Smoothie House is located at 9, Yongkang St., Daan District, Taipei City (106臺北市大安區永康街9號1樓2樓). They are open from 7:30AM-10:30PM.