Snowflakes in Subang Jaya.
“Our goal is to be the number Taiwanese dessert choice in Malaysia and the South East Asian Region. We strive to create and innovate the desserts with a Taiwanese element and standard of quality that will be enjoyed by millions everywhere. Ultimately, we want everyone to finally enjoy a healthy yet wonderful bowl of dessert” stated Lim, manager of the branch at SS15 via phone interview.
The story of how Snowflake came about is clearly printed on a poster on the wall. The creator and founder of Snowflake is Jimmy.
Jimmy was born in Taichung County, located in the central region of Taiwan. In Taichung, there is a great emphasis within community and family towards pursuing a healthy lifestyle. For many generations Jimmy’s family has been growing organic crops for their own consumption on the fertile lands around their home.
Growing up, Jimmy tasted all sorts of delicious traditional Taiwanese desserts made by his granny and his mum using their very own homegrown organic vegetables and natural ingredients. During this time, Jimmy learned the secrets and techniques of cooking many wonderful desserts by helping out in the kitchen.
Shortly after moving to Malaysia, Jimmy found himself missing the sumptuous desserts of home. So he created SNOWFLAKE to introduce Malaysians to the wonderfully natural and authentic desserts of Taiwan. Staying true to Taiwanese traditions, SNOWFLAKE always guarantees the use of the finest and freshest ingredients to create unique desserts of the highest quality. All of our desserts are handmade and freshly cooked for hours daily to ensure that the natural flavour of each ingredient can be tasted in each and every spoonful.
Snowflake consists of both cold and hot servings to cater to people who prefer their desserts hot. The Snowflake series’ style of ordering is akin to how one would order a sandwich at Subway. Within the Snowflake series, there are the Grass Jelly series (shaved grass jelly Ice and grass jelly on top), Taroballs series (shaved Ice with yam and sweet potato Taroballs on top) and Soya Ice series (shaved soya ice). After choosing a series, you choose toppings to go with your series.
Next is the Memorable series which are a preset combination of dessert. There are nine different desserts to choose from in this series. In the Tohua series, the base is soya and it has 12 different preset combinations of toppings to choose from. There is also the option of choosing any three toppings you would like with your Tohua series.
They also have the Original series and Frozzie which are drinks for the customer to enjoy instead of the Snowflake dessert. There are 11 different kinds of interesting drinks to choose from and there is also the Snowflake bite which is actually the Ipoh Heong Peah.
What makes Snowflake special is the variety of toppings. There are 17 different toppings to mix and match with what you have ordered. If one cannot decide, one can always settle for the Snowflake Bestseller.
Once you have placed your order, you are given a Beeping UFO which lights up and vibrates when your order is ready. This system is very efficient as it does not keep the customers standing around and causing clutter at the “pick up” counter.
The Beeping UFO
Karl Wilson, one of the staff at Snowflake stated that the Snowflake Bestseller sells the fastest, at an average of 400 bowls a day and the three series sell 600 bowls collectively on average per day.
Alejandro Pintado, said “I always order the Lemon Jade Jelly Ice. It is just shaved ice with lemon jelly on top so, I add on Ocha balls (green tea balls). The service is very fast and they are very consistent in quality. They keep the place very clean so it makes me feel comfortable eating there”. Pintado is a regular customer and he visits Snowflake once every week.
“I go to Snowflake about three to four times a month. I usually order the soya series with set two toppings which are sweet potato, barley and pearls. I like the taroballs too, so I pay extra to have them added on. The price has gone up since the first time I ate there but I keep going back because it is unique and Snowflake’s dessert is authentic in the sense that you cannot find it elsewhere” said Cyren Wong. When asked what improvements could be done to make his visits more worthwhile, he stated that he would like a make-your-own-sundae-bar where we would be free to make our own Snowflake with whatever toppings we desire.
Kok, a student of Monash University said she is willing to drive out to SS15 for Snowflake as it is not too far and the trip for Sea Amber Jelly is worth it. “Snowflake needs to get a bigger place. It is always packed and you have to wait for a seat during peak hours. The current location is too small. They should expand the shop” said Kok.
Snowflake was founded and made popular in 2009, opened its first branch at SS15 directly opposite Asia Café. Its popularity has enabled three more branches to be opened at Pavilion, Kota Damansara and at Jalan Kuchai Lama.
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