Cafe O’Dessert

This is literally the best shaved ice in Seattle. The ice is fluffy and light like ice cream because it’s shaved so finely. There are many toppings to choose from and the fruit is fresh. My favorite is mango and cantaloupe with grass jelly, mochi, and fresh fruit. Their savory dishes are excellent too. They remind me of my mom’s cooking. Also, the owner is incredibly sweet and very kind. The café is clean and charming with whiteboards filled with drawings, and paintings on the wall. I am going to come back and try the other desserts here as well.

Food is good. The steamed fish is very fresh but not well cooked before we asked them to re-​steam. However, there’s one thing we can’t stand. We saw at least six cockroaches on the way from the restroom to the kitchen. Gross and shocking. Almost threw up. We won’t visit again.

Café O’Dessert has some amazinggg choices of dessert that are relatively inexpensive! I especially enjoy their shaved ice and egg waffles which are not too sweet, but just right.
It’s definitely a hidden gem at the top of the Ave., but it’s such a treat (no pun intended). I’m so thankful that my friend recommended this place to me. I just want to come back to try everything on hot summer days when I’m craving something yummy!

Really, really okay. The desserts will definitely appeal to college students who will eat just about anything, especially those who are studying abroad and crave any flavors reminiscent of home. We ordered the grass jelly with sweet tofu and taro balls, along with a side of Vietnamese coffee. The dessert was served chilled, the grass jelly was a tad bitter, and the taro balls were sparse. Not sure if the ingredients are homemade, but this dessert is srsly not that hard to put together and I wish the final dish had more exciting textures and flavors. The coffee was fine, it came in a to-​go cup even though we were eating in and was adorned with a super random Target coozy. I was surprised by Café O’Dessert’s range of regular food options, although I’m not sure if I would go out of my way to try them. This particular spot on the Ave has gone through so many different store fronts, hopefully Café O’Dessert will be the one to step up their game and stay for good!

The service was okay, but we didn’t get anything spectacular for the $ 6 we paid for each dessert.
I got a green tea egg waffle that was limp, lacked crispiness, green tea flavor (what?!)… It was very meh. It’s saving grace was the fact that it wasn’t too sweet, and the mango that I asked to top it was fresh.
My friend’s sago was plain. I’ve been here twice now (first time got mango sticky rice) and I have been unimpressed both times. Probably won’t be coming back, at least for dessert.

It was a nice hot day, the kind of day you just want to have some shaved ice. After having Indian food for lunch, we walked across the street to this cute little shop. The ladies were friendly and it wasn’t packed. We ordered the mango shaved ice and a green tea egg waffle. We thought the egg waffle was going to come with green tea ice cream but it was actually green colored which was still just as good. The shaved ice was perfect, exactly what we needed on a hot day. It didn’t have any hard bits of ice in it. It was actually beautifully shaven like you could see the folds of the ice. it was so soft and not too cold on the teeth. would definitely go back on a hot day.

I was so excited to try the shaved ice only to be disappointed. We ordered dou hua (dao fu fa), 2 shaved ice, and an egg waffle. All disappointing.
1) The dou hua had this weird texture. it kind of tasted like vita soy pudding. Edible, but not good. No one liked it.
2) Strawberry & mango shaved ice. The texture of the shaved ice was good but it HAD NO FLAVOR. Didn’t taste like strawberry. didn’t taste like mango. Just shaved ice. «Fruit» topping consisted of melons. Mochi was good.
3) Green tea & sesame shaved ice. Couldn’t taste the green tea and sesame had just a hint of sesame flavor.
4) Egg waffle. Not crunchy at all. I’ve had better.
Overall, the service was good. The portions that you receive are decent for the price. Too bad everything we ordered had no flavor. I definitely miss all the asian dessert spots in San Francisco, Café O’Dessert failed me. Not coming back, sorry.

We came only for the dessert!
| s t a f f |
Very friendly and accommodating.
| dessert |
We ordered a large shave ice and a chocolate egg waffle with whip.
If you’ve never had this kind of shaved ice before, it is a treat. This was our first time having shaved ice like this (we are used to the hawaiian-​kind) and we really enjoyed it. It’s really light and airy, the flavor is subtle (especially the taro) and it almost feels as if you aren’t eating anything! It doesn’t leave you full like normal ice-​cream and it is rather refreshing.
We added mochi, coconut jelly, and condensed milk. Next time we are definitely getting fresh fruit on top! A neighboring table got it and it looked great.
The chocolate egg waffle was our favorite part. It is the famous egg waffle. It has circles within it instead of your traditional belgian waffle with a grid pattern. The circles are puffy and break off individually from the unit. Making it easy to eat and filled with the warm slight chewiness that I love. It was simple, delicious, and not something you can currently get everywhere.
| d e c o r |
This is what you can expect from most places on the ave. it definitely needs some work and maybe a cleaning. You’ll be so entranced by your dessert that you might not even notice.

Ever since I tried Frostcity in Honolulu, I have been trying to find a place in Seattle that served something similar to their snow ice. It seems with one of The Ave’s newer additions, Café O’Dessert, was the answer to my quest for snow ice. For those unfamiliar with snow ice, its basically a block of flavored ice that is shaved down to a snow-​like texture, yet creamy when consumed.
At Café O’Dessert, its known as shaved ice. They offer a variety of flavors such as mango, watermelon, blueberry, strawberry, cantaloupe, sesame, coconut, peanut, milk, green tea and taro. I let my sister choose our flavor combo and she went with watermelon and coconut with fruit topping. Surprisingly, the shaved ice flavors were not too sweet but were refreshing. I was a little disappointed with the texture, since it was icy/​gritty not like the snow ice I’ve been looking for. Since we got ours in a take out container, the toppings were at the bottom which meant we had to do some digging to construct that perfect bite.
While its not exactly what I was looking for, I’ll be back to sample their other offerings. I do find their shaved ice refreshing and a good option if you are in need of a light dessert.

My fiancé absolutely loves this place for their shaved snow. The flavor is IN the snow, and it’s as finely grounded as ice can get. This place replaced one of the tea places on the Ave, and specializes in so many unique asian desserts. I’ve always wanted to try the other ones but the one my fiancé always gets when we go there is the shaved snow. Their flavors are amazing, especially sesame and matcha, which is our favorite. You get two toppings and can add additional toppings for 50 cents more, I think, which is very reasonable. Their large feeds two people very comfortably, so I can imagine the small being just a one-​person serving.
Bonus: They also serve bubble tea and egg waffles in classic flavors too, including chocolate and matcha !

I’ve wanted to try this place for their Taiwanese shaved ice for a long time. I love the fact that this place is open late. My girlfriend was hungry when we came so we ordered the beef brisket noodle soup to share and a black sesame Taiwanese shaved ice with red beans and mochi.
First things first. Never order real (savory) food here. It is CLEARLY not what they are known for… I could have made the beef brisket noodle soup myself and done a better job (with hours of labor of course) but it honestly wasn’t anything special. What I am giving this place 4 stars for, is their wonderful taiwanese shaved ice. Taiwanese shaved ice is different from hawaiian shaved ice, it’s not just shredded ice like snow cones but it’s a block of milk infused ice that they shave off slivers, micro strands if you will, of beautiful and silky perfection into thin sheets of milk based «shaved ice» and then they add certain toppings you can choose from.
The black sesame has always been my favorite and I have yet to try the other flavors. I’m not a HUGE fan of mocha or red beans, but it went well with the black sesame.
I’ve had various places in LA such as blockheads, and this place is pretty comparable in taste. Taiwan shaved ice in Taiwan will always still hold a dear place in my heart but this is pretty good too!

This place is interesting. It seems like it’s known for desserts but when we walked in most people were eating hot meals.
The menu for shaved ice was really confusing for me. I had to ask about it and apparently the menu shows all the different flavors of shaved ice you can have and you can pick up to two, and then you can pick up to two toppings which can be fresh fruit or toppings like red bean or mochi.
We ordered half taro half milk with strawberries and mango. When we got our dessert, it actually also came with mochi and beans which I didn’t know we were gonna get. The fruits were good and I really like the fluffy texture of the shaved ice, but it had no taro flavor or milk flavor at all. The portion was also small for about $ 7. I can definitely get a bigger shaved ice at other Taiwanese restaurants for the same price!
Overall, probably wouldn’t come again but the service was good and I really liked the fluffiness of the shaved ice!

We ordered the beef brisket and the pork dumpling + spare ribs noodle soup bowls. Both broths and noodles were identical for the two orders. The spare ribs was more tasty than the beef brisket, as it was marinated beforehand. Likewise, pork dumplings (sui kau) were tasty too, and were sufficiently meaty. The beef brisket was average, slightly tender. But the broth was below average, as it really didn’t match the beef taste. I would pass on this noodle if I were to re-​visit.
We came for the ‘shaved ice’. The owner explained that the fruit shaved ice, already had the fruit inside the ice block (i.e. unlike the snow cones, this is NOT flavored syrup on ice shavings). This was different than anything we have tasted, so, it was a nice different experience. However, having grown up on Asian desserts, I will opt for the traditional desserts on the next visit.

This is such a cute little place! I could easily spend lots of time doing homework here. It’s further up The Ave, so it’s not too crowded, and has just the right amount of white noise that’s good for studying.
The food looks pretty good, though I only went for dessert, so I can’t say for sure. But oh man, the shaved ice. For $ 6.50, you get a mountain of the fluffy, creamy ice and two toppings. We got the milk with strawberries and mango – perfect for two people, though I could easily see myself demolishing it on my own if I were really so inclined. (It’s just ice, right? It can’t be THAT terrible for you…)

I was very excited to hear this place had specialty Chinese desserts! Everything seems homemade, they are a family run restaurant. The lady who owns the place was very informative and helpful when I asked her questions about the menu.
* ³⁄₅: I ordered the matcha green tea flavored shaved ice tea with lychee jelly, grass jelly, and mochi balls. It wasn’t awesome amazeballs, the matcha flavor could’ve been stronger in my opinion, but overall it was enjoyable and good for the price ($ 6.50)
I would come back again to try their hot desserts! A great addition to the ave.

Café O’Dessert is a great place for warm Asian desserts. I’ve literally been there like 4 times this week after discovering this small gem. I’ve tried the Red Bean Rice Ball soup (红豆沙汤圆), the Mango with Sago (芒果西米露), the Black Sticky Rice with Mango and Coconut Milk (叶子芒果黑糯米), and the Signature Shaved Ice. All of them have been absolutely delicious and I cannot wait to try more. This place also uses this Mobile App for their punch card and I am only 5 more away from a free dessert of my choice haha.
Can’t wait to keep trying more things at this Mom and Pop shop.
Protip: Warm desserts are the bomb and if you get 10 you get 1 free through their app.

Finally a place opened up that serves snow shaved ice. The shop is a small hole in the wall place. This type of shaved ice is super smooth and creamy, and is served in different flavors with different toppings. You can basically customize it as you want, choose one or two snow ice flavors: green tea, black sesame, mango, strawberry, etc. Then choose toppings: fresh fruit, mochi, red bean, etc.
GOOD
* Green Tea — Good strong slightly bitter, yet sweet green tea flavor
* Black Sesame — Good black sesame flavor
* Strawberry — Fresh fruit strawberries on top were sweet and refreshing.
MEH
* Mango — The mango snow ice was lacking in flavor. But mango fresh fruit was good.

I’ve been here a few times for different desserts. The first time I tried the taro tapioca soup dessert and it was good but I couldn’t finish it all because it was too filling. I’d order it again if I was craving it though.
I’ve also tried their flavored shave ice. I was confused at first because the pictures have lots of strawberries and mangoes and that’s what we wanted, but somehow they added strawberry, milk and mango-​flavored shave ice instead of the actual fruits. That was fine, but I would’ve preferred the fruits than the flavors. The texture of the shaved ice is pretty unique and unlike anywhere else I’ve had shaved ice in Seattle. Very similar to the Taiwanese kind.
They take awhile to make your dessert and I wish they were a bit faster. Seats are pretty limited, but the service is very friendly and nice.

This review is for the shaved ice only:
I was so excited to see this type of fluffy shaved ice coming to Seattle, FINALLY. However, I was left feeling disappointed, sadly! Note: this is not the kind of snow cone shaved ice, like the ones find in Hawaii. They make this kind by putting a giant block of flavored ice in a machine that, of course, shaves it in thin layers.
There are only a few options for shaved ice and they are in a set combination. I tried the green tea, milk, and taro combo with strawberries, mochi, and lychee jelly. I didn’t like how all the flavors were presented in layers — by the time I got to the taro at the bottom, it was mixed in with the other 2 flavors. Most importantly though, the shaved ice wasn’t as light and pillowy as the ones I’ve tried in places like California. The texture was more like ice cream that had been partially melted and re-​frozen. Not quite shaved ice, not quite ice cream, but a weird in-​between instead. Finally, the mochi they had was kinda strange and stale? It was hard and didn’t taste or look like regular mochi at all. Overall the actual flavors were pretty good, but very subtle. If you are looking for something sweet, this may not be for you.
All in all, it’s not too bad for what it is. I don’t think I’ll get it again here, but I would definitely like to come back and try some of their other desserts!

Came here just for the promising pictures of the shaved ice. Was a little let down that it was pretty basic, but I still enjoyed it! I got a split green tea and taro shaved ice with strawberries, mangos, and mochi! The mochi was probably my favorite part– soft and chewy and delectable. They have whiteboards on the walls with markers everywhere so you can draw stuff while you wait which I had a lot of fun doing.
It’s a quiet and cute spot to grab a bite or a drink. I’d come back if I lived closer because some of the food I saw at the tables around me looked pretty good!