Somisomi

Rating: ★★★★☆

Address:  640 Spectrum Center Dr Irvine, CA 92618
Hours of Operations: Monday – Thursday: 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM, Friday – Saturday: 11:00 AM – 11:00 PM, Sunday: 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM

 

Ever since I went to Japan back in 2015, I’ve been dying to find a place that served taiyaki near San Diego. So when I saw friends posting on Instagram photos from Somisomi, I knew I had to try it. Somisomi has multiple locations (mostly in Southern California), but the ones I was really interested in were the San Diego and Irvine ones. Since I had never been to the Irvine Spectrum Center before, Mat and I decided that we would go there instead of the San Diego location.

We left early on Sunday and were able to find parking with no issues. I do want to note that the Irvine Spectrum Center feels like a freaking theme park (they literally have a booth where you get purchase tickets for “Attractions” wtf), so it does get ridiculously crowded throughout the day. I recommend coming earlier if you want to avoid feeling claustrophobic or like you’re going to get trampled to death.

Finding Somisomi was a bit of a challenge, so be sure to grab a brochure. It turns out that it was towards the middle of the mall, but you had to turn a quick corner and then make your way towards the back to find it. It’s wedged in between a lot of bigger shops. Thankfully it didn’t take us too long to find it and we were so happy when we did!

The shop was pretty empty when we arrived (we got there maybe 30min after opening), but this gave us the chance to look at the different flavors and options. The four flavors for soft serve are: 1) matcha, 2) ube, 3) black sesame, and 4) milk. They offer two different swirl combos (milk + ube, matcha + black sesame, etc.) and I believe they try to change it every other week. If you don’t want a swirl, you can just get one individual flavor.

After you pick out your soft serve flavor, you can pick out the filling for your taiyaki. They have three flavors: 1) nutella, 2) custard, 3) red bean.

We decided we wanted to go for the #AESTHETIC so we got swirl flavors. I got the matcha and black sesame with nutella filling while Mat got the milk and ube with custard filling. We were then allowed to pick out different toppings to throw onto our taiyaki. Mat put fruity pebbles and Oreo crumbs on his while I put Oreo crumbs and a strawberry on mine. The service was great as everyone we spoke with was incredibly friendly and polite! It was starting to get crowded when we picked up our orders, though, so be aware of the noise levels. I had to ask the employees to repeat themselves a few times. Oops.

Flavor wise, I think the milk and ube combo are best. I love matcha, but mixed with the black sesame I didn’t like it as much. The next time we come back, I’ll definitely be getting the milk and ube combo or just matcha or ube. The soft serve flavors were fantastic, overall, and kept its shape as I kept trying to take pictures.

The toppings were great. I loved my Oreo crumbs and Mat loved his fruity pebbles, but the strawberry just did not work for me. It was difficult to eat (had to pull it out of the soft serve to eat it) and made my life just a little bit messier.

Ice cream makes me thirsty, so by the time I got to the taiyaki filling, I was itching for some water. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you all know… Nutella has a very peanut butter-y texture, so the filling actually left me THIRSTIER lmao. It was delicious and I loved it, but man I really wish I had brought a water bottle or something.

I had a bite of the custard taiyaki and it was perfect. Definitely had enough moisture to not make your mouth feel dry or stuck. I do want to quickly note that the food does get messy, so please be sure to grab a lot of napkins! This didn’t stop it from being delicious though!!

A great experience overall. I would definitely recommend this to anyone in the area.