Soft serve and shoddy service at Kyotofu

It was definitely ice cream weather last week, and on Thursday evening, I strolled to Kyotofu to check out their soft serve. Good flavors? Check! I was in.

I snagged a taste of the swirl-- French Vanilla Bean and Black Sesame. I expected to hate the black sesame, since I'm a traditionalist when it comes to ice cream flavors, but it was surprisingly good. It came on as an intriguingly familiar flavor-- maybe like cookies 'n' cream? or caramel? hard to place--and then finished with a mild whisper of familiar sesame flavor. It was definitely not the thick sesame taste I was expecting, the kind that almost chokes you, peanut-butter-like. It was good, and it offset the French Vanilla Bean nicely.

I decided to play it safe and just order a cup of the vanilla with fresh fruit compote. Surprisingly, I regretted not getting a cup of the swirl-- without the black sesame, the vanilla bean was a bit one-note sweet at the beginning. But once you brought in the delicious jam-like stewed fruit, it melted into strawberry and vanilla goodness. Truly satisfying.

Already melting

Once again, the only beef I have with Kyotofu is the service. I was the only person at the takeout counter, and there were two people on takeout duty, yet it was a struggle to catch someone's eye at the beginning, and once I was ready to order it took a good couple minutes for the sample-giving employee to notice that I was still there. During that time I came very near simply walking out with my sample and being done with it, as I actually have on several occasions after waiting many minutes for service at Kyotofu. Kyotofu, your wares are delicious, but you have a ways to go in terms of customer service. Will I be back? Honestly, it depends on my level of patience when the soft serve craving hits.

Kyotofu
705 Ninth Avenue, between 48th and 49th Streets
212-974-601