Parfait Club Third Meeting

Location: Estación Café, Basement Floor 1 at Kyoto Station.
Members present: Kristin, Owen, Kelly O., Kelly R.
Parfaits tried:
2 Chocofudge Sundaes ¥700
1 Berry-Berry Parfait ¥730
1 Matcha (green tea) Parfait ¥770
Ingredients:
Chocofudge--Top layer is chocolate ice cream with fudge sauce and chocolate-chip cookies. Under this is a mixture of banana and marshmallow, followed by waffle and vanilla ice cream. The next later is another scoop of chocolate ice cream and slices of banana. The bottom layer was a large piece of waffle soaked in fudge sauce.
Berry-Berry--The top layer is french vanilla ice cream with strawberry syrup and a sample of raspberry, blueberry and an unidentified small sweet red berry. To the side is an adornment of mint. Beneath this layer is a waffle, and beneath that is plain yogurt. The bottom was a final layer of what may have been yuzu.
Matcha--Green tea ice cream, topped with red bean paste, mochi, sweet potato, vanilla ice cream, waffle, more mochi, and more red bean paste.

Reviews:
Kristin--Regarding the restaurant: The restaurant itself has both smoking and nonsmoking together, and so you may have a problem with allergies. Also, our table rocked back and forth. Otherwise it is clean and seemed friendly. It is very small, so it is bad for large groups. Regarding the parfait: I had the berry parfait, and personally I was a bit disappointed. The ice cream was delicious and rich, but I found that the waffle became soggy, the yogurt was sour in comparison to the sweet fruit topping, ant it lacked a certain crunch. Not enough contrast... but the fruit on top was amazing. I will not be returning here, but I was still glad to eat it.

Kelly R.--I had the chocofudge sundae. The chocolate and vanilla ice cream was absolutely top-notch. The flavors in the rest of the parfait were also good. When I got to the first waffle piece, it was good. By the time I got ot the one at the bottom, it was soggy and less satisfying. The cookies were only so-so. Nothing special--could have been generic out-of-a-bag cookies. Overall, not worth the ¥700. The restaurant had a nice atmosphere except that there is nothing to stop the smoke from the smoking "section" from getting into the non-smoking "section." By the end of the meal, my head was fogged from the smoke. Unpleasant, that.

Owen--I had the grean tea parfait. It had a very Japanese feel to it. The green tea and the red bean parts complement one another very well, both taste and texture. The green tea mochi and rice mochi also added to the distinct Japanese sweets that make up the parfait. However, the vanilla was too sweet, taking away from the Japanese feel.

Kelly O.--Defintely not the best we've encountered thus far. I would have preferred it with more fruit--the bananas, though they go very well with chocolate, don't provide the same satisfying juiciness of berries or somesuch. The waffles were an interesting addition--indeed, I'd love to go back to try the waffles alone--but they didn't work well as a bottom layer. They became soggy and unpleasant. They might have been better on top as a sort of decoration. Overal, it could have use a lot more variety by way of ingredients and flavors. However, it definitely satisfied my chocolate craving--amazing ice cream!