Craving ice cream without the sugar crash? There’s a new ice cream shop in downtown Burlingame offering soft-serve ice cream in flavors such as black sesame, matcha and red guava – all with only a quarter the amount of sugar as regular American ice cream, according to Buena’s Organic Soft Serve owner Buena Rinchin.
“I want people to know that ice cream can taste really good without all that sugar,” she said.
For a 6-ounce serving, Rinchin’s organic soft serve ranges from 7 to 11 grams of sugar depending on the flavor. And if you want it on a cone, the sugar level stays the same, as the housemade cereal cones also contain no sugar. This doesn’t mean the sugar is being replaced with monk fruit, sucralose, aspartame or any other sugar replacement – it’s just simply being left out.
“It doesn’t affect the texture at all,” Rinchin said. “Soft-serve ice cream is supposed to be airy, fluffy, soft and tasty.”
Also the owner of La Vie Nail Bar in downtown Burlingame, Rinchin immigrated from Mongolia to Oklahoma at 17 years old as an international exchange student and has been a Millbrae resident since 2018. Buena’s Organic Soft Serve, located in the former Pressed Juicy, is Rinchin’s debut in the food and beverage industry – a debut influenced by a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
“I was diagnosed two years ago, and I love dessert and food in general, but American ice cream options offer really full sugar,” she said. “I used to take my kids to Salt & Straw, and I used to just get one kids’ scoop of ice cream, and I could just feel sugar flowing through my body.”
She missed the soft serve from her childhood in Mongolia, and realized there weren’t any high quality soft serve spots in the area. So she decided to make her own.
She partnered with Valley Ford Creamery, located in Sonoma County, for organic milk, and offers six flavors at a time, limited by the amount of electricity to run her machines. Four flavors are always on the menu (chocolate, vanilla, matcha and black sesame) and two flavors rotate weekly or biweekly (previous flavors include dragon fruit, taro, strawberry and raspberry).
Cups and cones ($7.99) come with one topping included (like milk chocolate flakes, Oreo dust, sprinkles, coconut flakes, strawberry cake crumbs, toasted almonds, cornflakes, peppermint candy crumbs or cotton candy cake crumbs), or add a mini croffle ($2.99), or upgrade your cup or cone to a croffle or crepe ($10.99-$12.99).
“People tend to not really flavor and make their crepe mix right. They just mix their crepe with some water and eggs and salt, and then they think people can get their flavoring from Nutella, fruits and sauce,” Rinchin said “In my crepe mix, there’s zero water. I put organic milk, butter, eggs, vanilla extract and a little bit of salt. So the crepe itself is so good.”
In addition to soft serve and crepes, Buena’s Organic Soft Serve offers kids’ breakfast sets (peanut butter toasts with a choice of strawberries, blueberries or raspberries, served with organic milk on the side), deli sandwiches and espresso beverages. Rinchin hopes to soon introduce affogatos to her menu and is considering adding savory breakfast crepe options, if customers are interested.
While the shop itself is small, with only one two-seat table inside, outside seating has room for 12.
“My goal is to be on every main street and scale this because I think that having an organic, healthier option of ice cream should be there and be accessible to people when they want it,” she said. “We should all start getting into watching our sugar intake, and it has to start somewhere.”
Buena’s Organic Soft Serve, 1215 Burlingame Ave., Burlingame; 415-688-1179, Instagram: @buenasorganicsoftserve. Open daily from 11 a.m. to midnight.
Dig into food news. Follow the Peninsula Foodist on Instagram and subscribe to the newsletter to get insights on the latest openings and closings, learn what the Foodist is excited about eating, read exclusive interviews and keep up on the trends affecting local restaurants.
