Da Boba Place

Ice cream rolls are the latest food trend to hit Hawaii. The concept, which originated in Thailand, involves pouring ice cream onto a super cold pan (-22 degrees C to be exact), mixing in flavors and ingredients such as strawberries, crushed oreos, etc., smoothing it out, then using a scraper to scrape the ice cream into rolls.  

There are currently two places on Oahu that feature ice cream rolls, one in town, and the other in Aiea. Since I was recently in Aiea on a hot Friday afternoon, I called my friend who lives nearby to meet me at the one in Aiea called Da Boba Place, so that we could see what the hype was all about. 

The menu at Da Boba Place is pretty straightforward - five different flavors, $7.50 each.

Current flavors are:

• Cookie Monster (oreo, chocolate)
• Thank You Very Matcha (matcha, azuki beans)
• Strawberry Cone (strawberries, fruity pebbles)
• Chocolates for Breakfast (chocolate, chocolate brownies)
• Ube 40 (ube, coconut, boba)

Here you can watch your rolls being made right before your eyes. Since everything is made-to-order (incl. the ice cream!) and it's a multi-step process, expect to wait for your order. I waited about 12 minutes for my ice cream rolls, and it wasn't very busy.

Today I tried the Strawberry Cone. It came with four rolls of strawberry flavored ice cream, topped with whipped cream, fruity pebbles, strawberry sauce, and a couple of strawberry wafers.

It was good, but honestly, it was basically strawberry ice cream in the shape of a roll instead of a scoop.  Pricey? Not really, since by my guess, I got the equivalent of three scoops of ice cream for $7.50, which is about the going rate of ice cream these days. 

Da Boba Place also serves boba drinks, but the main attraction here are the ice cream rolls.

Passion fruit w/green tea and boba

Da Boba Place

99-115 Aiea Heights Drive

(808) 888-3986

Hours: Tuesday - Sunday  12:00 pm - 9:00 pm