Funky flavoured soft serve isn’t all that easy to find in Sydney. Whereas you can find flavours like sweet potato and sake not all that far from main city centres in Japan, matcha soft serve is about as adventurous as flavours go here. So when C told me about Aqua S Ice Cream Parlour in Regent Place, I was all ears.
Sea salt is the staple menu item at aqua S. The sea salt soft serve also takes on that beautiful aqua colour covering their walls. Salty soft serve doesn’t particularly entice me, but it did tickle C’s fancy. It tastes akin to dipping a French fry into McDonald’s soft serve. C also asked for fairy floss with her soft serve so it looked as if the soft serve were floating atop a cloud. The fairy floss is made to order for assured fluffiness.
I love lemon tea, so how could I pass it up for sea salt! The lemon tea soft serve is reminiscent of Lipton lemon iced tea concentrate powder. It has the same intense sweetness and sourness when you mix a lot of concentrate with a little bit of water. They probably got the pretty yellow colour with just the concentrate. I also asked for a toasted marshmallow – I love toasted marshmallow flavoured foods (like jelly beans!) but the actual toasted marshmallow itself? I’m not that keen, but I get suckered into trying it all the same. Isn’t it pretty toasted?
During the first half of September, they offered a Yuzu Soft Serve ($4.00 for a regular in cup or cone). The soft serve has a bright yuzu flavour with all its uplifting and refreshing qualities and just the slightest bitter edge to help the flavour persist throughout. It’s perfectly sweet with a dairy base, unlike the more sorbet-like version from Chanoma, making for a more creamy and less icy experience.
Casting aside our earlier disappointments from Aqua S after we’d enjoyed their yuzu flavour that we thought to return for another much-coveted flavour: pear ($4.50 in a cup or cone, a $0.50 increase since late 2017).
The pear flavour was a huge disappointment, alas. It tastes nothing like pear – not even artificial pear – and resorts to what most things taste like when they fall short of their promised flavour: vanilla. Specifically, it starts out tasting like a creamy vanilla marshmallow before becoming just vanilla as you continue eating.
Aqua S Ice Cream Parlour is located at Regent Place, Shop 27, 501 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000.