Local Ice Cream (First Impressions)

626 Ice Cream

Over the weekend, Tien and I were craving ice cream. It led to us venturing out to try a soft-serve shop that was apparently all the rave ovewr on TikTok and Instagram. This casual storefront, 626 Ice Cream, apparently has a majoirty of the 626 area enthralled with its offerings. Sitting at a 4.8 star on Yelp ( with over 500+ review), we just had to see what the hype was all about. After visiting I unfortunately have to say, I do not understand where the hype behind 626 Ice Cream comes from…

Upon pulling up, we saw that the place certainly had a good following as the line was out the door and into the parking lot. Thankfully, the wait wasn’t long as the staff proved to be efficient in their operations. Their menu is rather limited with only six flavors, however, we figured that this would be a quality over quantity experience. The staff was kind enough to let us try all six flavors so here were our impressions.

Black Sugar Vanilla – Typical vanilla ice cream with a bit of an extra kick to it, nothing really stood out

Lychee Strawberry – as a guy who prefers more fruit/tangy flavors, I really liked this one. I could tell that real fruits were used in the creation of this flavor and I greatly appreciated the fact that this was dairy free. For a flavor that contains no milk, the texture was very authentic. Most non-dairy ice creams tend to be more icey but this managed to be creamier.

Yakult – Possibly my 2nd favorite flavor here, which unfortunately doesn’t mean much. Are you familiar we the “We have food at home” meme? Well, the Yakult reminded me of the plain tart from Yogurtland…except it was “At home.”

Pineapple Passionfruit – I mentioned earlier how I preferred fruit flavors so you would think this would be my thing. One bite of this sample and I could feel my face scrunch up. This was unbelievably sour and I am someone who typically likes sour flavors. So if this was too sour, then that is saying something.

Hojicha – The staff proudly told us about how this tea-forward flavor uses ingradients directly imported from a farm in Kagoshima, Japan. I applaud them for using authentic ingredients but overall this Hojicha did not stick out as anything different from others we’ve had.

Honey Misu-Garu – Supposedly, this one tastes like cereal milk and it lived up to it. But there was no wow factor to it.

It didn’t help that the price was $7 per cup. Not quite worth the hype and the price.

Fosselman’s

Since the year 1919, a quaint little shop has been providing the city of Alhambra with amazing ice cream for 105 years. Surprisingly, despite living in the area for all 27 years of my life, I have never visited this iconic business until today. I have heard many great things about Fosselman’s for years with compliments ranging from their wonderful vintage 1900s vibe, to the innovative flavor developments. They even go as far as taking input from customers leading to more culturally diverse flavors such as Ube, Horchata, Red Bean and Dulce de Leche. Fosselman’s remains as a cultural icon in Alhambra providing us with classic ice cream while still innovating to keep up with modern tastes.

After the disappointment of 626 Ice Cream, I insisted we give one more local ice cream shop. Admittedly, I was like this because I did not want the 626 area to look bad compared to the ice cream scene in Orange County. There had to be good ice cream shops around here. So we decided to try Fosselman’s. Their yelp score was only at a 4.2 stars but had over 2k reviews vs 500+ for 626 Ice Cream.

First things that stuck out to us was the amount of sass the owner seems to give to bad reviews on Yelp. This must be a sign that they get good business especially if the owner can afford to respond like this to their customers. Nonetheless, the shop received too many glowing reviews to not try, so we ventured out to the great city of Alhambra.

Upon walking in, we noticed how reminiscent the vibe was of a classic early 1900s shop. The checkered floors, the white and pink colors, the classic style furniture and the general ambience served the shop well is keeping with its vintage vibe without appearing outdated.

At $4 per cup, the ice cream here was much more worth it. It could just be a placebo effect, but I thought the texture here was smoother. With an astounding 84 flavors offered, I definitely have to come back here again. So while 626 ice cream was a disappointment, we at least got to try an ice cream shop worthy of our time.