Sulbing — Restaurant in Santa Clara

Update (Dec 2023) : It seems like they've solved the "dusty" shaved milk / yogurt problem. This was one of the fundamental reasons why I gave it 3-stars last time. Upgrading it to 4 now!

Since the last review, I also tried 2 more flavors. Strawberries were "fresh" but again, keeps adding the "sour" flavor. Injeolmi seems to be the best between not-too-sweet and not-too-sour.

I wanted to love Sulbing so much. It hits on both the nostalgia and the gourmet shaved ice trend in Korea. And to that degree, it gets many things right. The visuals of the shaved ice dishes are exactly as if it was taken from a magazine. Some of the other desserts like the honey butter toast also comes out Instagram-ready.

The unfortunate fact is that the taste does not live up to the artisitc show case. Not sure what is going on with their shaved "ice" which I presume it is either milk or yogurt but there's a bit of graininess and dustiness to the foundation (which is the shaved ice). This is simply just not acceptable when you are selling this as your primary dish. The mangoes in the shaved ice were also pulpy and not fresh - absolutely going for the color and not necessarily the quality of the fruit. They could've absolutely added a scoop of vanilla ice-cream to smoothen things out but rather chose to add in cubes of cream cheese... hmm... I'm not sure who is coming up with these receipes but whatever ingredients they are using to fulfill the receipe is not cutting it.

Price isn't that cheap but understandable. A $20 shaved ice will feed 3 adults comfortably.

Overall, a grat addition to the Bay Area and hope this place prospers. Love seeing more Korean culture and trends seep in. Although shortcomings, will return again as there's just not an...

📢 PSA: Last call is at 9:15 PM‼️ The self-service payment kiosk will SHUT DOWN right at that time (or shortly after if someone's ordering) and the staff will NOT take your order manually.

Updated: I went again with my girlfriends, which I gave full warning that the order might take up to 45 minutes like my original review. Walking in on a busy Friday night and seeing so many people at tables without their orders did not bring us much hope but we decided to commit since we're craving it. We ordered the strawberry bingsu and prayed it'd come by the time we found a table. Wow oh wow is it hard to lock down seating. My friends and I were keen af table vultures swooping in on one we hunted down and mind you, some other group almost tried to swoop it from under us as well. Even grabbing a table is a whole affair 🤦‍♀️ THANKFULLY though, we received our order just a few moments before we secured the table so only about 15 minutes wait 😲 Not sure if our order was easier to make or what, nonetheless we celebrated by savoring the sweet strawberries and the delightful addition of mochi on top and red bean buried in the middle. I'm manifesting more staff hires after this prolonged "soft opening" period because they looked miserably overworked.

Original: I'm a big fan of Sulbing in LA so I went here during their soft opening and well...the wait was atrocious. Thankfully though, the quality of the bingsu saved them. I shared the tiramisu with my friend and it was more than enough for the both of us. I believe the tiramisu itself was frozen and then defrosted because it was fairly dense towards the middle. Next time, I plan on asking for extra condensed...

I was excited to find out there is one Sulbing near San Francisco. When visiting South Korea, I had this almost everyday. We drove about an hour with all the traffic from San Francisco to taste the pat bing su.

Even though, it has lots of bad reviews and as a fan of sulbing, I still decided to go here. We arrive around 7pm and not too full and we are lucky to find a parking. It is true that the parking is a little hard to find and there are some spots that was reserved by other shop for their customers.

Again, when visiting Sul Bing for me only 2 choices: signature injeolmi or red bean injeolmi. Sulbing had the best injeolmi pat bing su i had ever had compare to any other pat bing su in South Korea. The reason is the amount of the mung bean powder they provided and the taste of the red bean.

In this store, the red bean was less compare to the one in South Korea but luckily, there is an option to add extra red bean and mung bean powder.

I really recommend this place and as I read reviews: they stop take order at 9:15pm, weekend is very busy but like most restaurants in sf and sub, they always busy if a...