Every time I come back to San Francisco, I am pretty overwhelmed with all the options, both old and new, for food. It’s definitely a fun “problem” to have, but I look forward to planning my trips around who I am planning to see, and what I am going to eat and drink. One of the fun places I knew I had to go to this time around was Garden Creamery, which was conveniently located just two blocks away from the restaurant where my friend and I were going to have dinner. It’s known for having a delicious and fun combination of Hawaiian and Asian flavors that change seasonally, from ube and pandan to matcha with toffee bits to kaya flavored ice cream. They use grass-fed, organic and local milk, and they also have a pretty large variety of vegan flavors to choose from, as well.

I chose the ube and pandan, plus the matcha gold (which has toffee bits), and I loved every last bite of each. The owner was actually scooping herself and was really friendly, and I just loved the variety of flavors available; it was so hard to make a choice! I couldn’t remember the last time I just kept licking my spoon after I finished my ice cream — it was that good.

It excites me to see that ice cream parlors are branching out with flavors that encompass how global of a world we live in now. There was not just one, but two varieties of green tea ice cream (the other one was genmaicha, toasted rice with green tea!), black sesame, ube, kaya, and many others that were so tempting and (naturally) colorful).