Avalanche Shave Ice

On a hot summer day Avalanche really is the place to be. I love how they have all the syrup bottles on a table for you to choose. Makes it a fun experience to go crazy with the flavors and see what comes out of it.
I always get a small with an extra scoop of vanilla ice cream:)
The syrup ice and the ice cream mix really well.
Plus they give you a ridiculous mountain pile of ice to be the base of where your syrup lands. It’s fun and tasty!:)

The place is clean, the prices are good, you get to add your own flavors. As good as it gets.

I came here because I wanted to try a new shaved ice spot. Right when you walk in the door they greet you and explain to you how the process works (if its your first time there). I ordered a small with condensed milk which cost $ 3.00, average price but they pack the ice up high so I think its worth it. They also have tons of flavors to choose from and you can also purchase your own ice cream cookie sandwich. The ice is shaved thin so its not chunky and you don’t get huge ice cubes that’ll chip your teeth. This place also has a sitting area for 15 people and a restroom.
The process:
1) You tell them what size you want and whatever extras they want i.e. ice cream, condensed milk, mochi etc.
2) They fill up the cup with ice and a side of whatever extras you ordered
3) Put the flavor you want on the ice and enjoy, you can go back as many times to get a different flavor.

I got a small shaved ice with vanilla ice cream and, being obsessed with honeydew, poured a good amount of Melona syrup on top. The whole thing was so refreshing, and I poured some condensed milk which made it even better. I was already so full by the time I got down to the ice cream but it was so good and creamy. Overall, such a good price and so customizable. If I lived in SoCal I would come super often!

First off let me say The customer service is outstanding here and the guys working there are the best! They were great and helped us with everything we needed to basically make our own shaved ice. very cool concept if you know how to do it. I actually don’t know how to do it and would rather pay someone to do it for me.
This is how it went:
— pay for what you want
— they give you a cup of shaved ice
— you do the rest
While applying the syrup on it spilled all over the place and I had no clue how much to add (I added way too much). I ended up having my hands full of syrup & cup full of syrup at the end of eating my shaved ice. Usually when I order red beans or any type of filling it’s either inside or underneath the shaved ice but here you get it in a small container on the side and I thought that was odd (I tried to dig a hole and put it under my ice smh). Lastly, I sprayed a bunch of sour spray on and when we got home I couldn’t taste it. I thought I sprayed WAY too much too but I guess it wasn’t enough.
After our experience we thought about it and came to the conclusion that we did most of the work and paid for them to just shave a block of ice for us. Personally, I enjoy paying for a trained shaved ice person to create a tasty masterpiece for me than to pay to do it myself and ruin everything.
I probably won’t be back but I can see why others love this place.
OOO
3 out of 5 Afros

I’m from Hawaii and this shaved ice place is legit. It’s more like snow ice actually. Huge portions, great service, & awesome idea to be able to pour your own flavors. Will definitely be coming back. Add sour spray and turn that ordinary wild raspberry into SOUR wild raspberry… oh, and vanilla ice cream in it is a must. I was never a fan of adding ice cream, but their vanilla ice cream is that thick and creamy good kind.

There are some days when you just want a scoop of ice cream with a cookie. That craving hits you even harder when you’ve been in class for 5 hours and you have 3 more hours to go. My friends and I took a quick break between classes to grab some sweets to get us through the rest of the night. It seems like this place specializes in shaved ice but I really wasn’t in the mood. This place was a little more unique in some sense because you make your own shaved ice. They give you the ice but you pour as much syrup as you want at the self serve bar. My friend opted for this and she enjoyed it quite a bit.
I got a scoop of green tea ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie. It totally made my day. They were pretty generous with their scoop and their green tea ice cream was pretty delicious. If I wanted to sugar overload I probably would have gotten their ice cream sandwich but alas I can’t afford to consume that many calories. They also have the option of getting ice cream with your shaved ice and that’s probably what I’ll get next time if I come by. Free parking in the back! Come for a sweet treat. ⁴⁄₅

SOOOO freaking happy to find this place so close to our home. There are lots of boba houses and shave ice places in the area but this is the only one we’ve found with sugar free flavors!
My favorite thing about this place is they give you the shaved ice and you put the syrup on yourself. So, you can make it as light or heacy as you please.
The young ladies who work there are very friendly and helpful, too. Last week we went in and really wanted to make a sugar-​free rootbeer float but they didn’t have the SF rootbeer flavor on the counter. I mentioned what I wanted to make and the young lady went in the back and MADE us some SF root beer syrup! Now THAT’s service!
This place is spotlessly clean; a real pleasure these days. Will probably be back every week during the summer.

I came here recently because I had a $ 10 livingsocial deal to use. It was my first time here and I was kind of confused at how it worked. I stared at the menu for a long time before realizing that you just choose what size ice you want and if you want any toppings… and all the syrups are self-​serve. It would’ve been nice for the girl working there to mention it to me from the beginning though since I did say it was my first time here. Anyways, we ended up getting the 32oz avalanche with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream and also an order of a double scoop of mint chocolate chip and green tea ice cream. This was wayyyy too much for 2 people! The syrups that I tried included watermelon, blood orange, blue Hawaiian, lychee, passion fruit, and mango. These were pretty good and the ice itself was actually quite fine and fluffy. sorta in between normal hawaiian ice but not quite as soft as shaved snow. I liked the green tea ice cream but not so much the mint chocolate chip. I usually like mint chocolate chip but for some reason this one tasted kind of weird to me. Overall, this is a cool place to check out when it’s hot outside and they have a large variety of syrups to choose from. But! At the end I would still prefer shaved snow over this.

Here’s what I can say about this place:
Lots of selection of syrups, and their ice is (obviously) made fresh to order. I honestly don’t remember too much about the shaved ice because it didn’t leave much of a positive impression on me.
Their cookies were definitely not fresh, as it cracked in front of me while they were making an ice cream sandwich; the most upsetting part is that the guy just left it broken in the cup and served that as an ice cream sandwich to me. Thanks.
Décor is okay, and I thought it was a pretty nice idea to have the syrups as a main highlight. The only issue is most of the bottles were sticky.
Overall, I’m not very impressed with this place; sub-​par quality and flavors. Nothing hits as complex or rich, but only as flat.

Haven’t had shaved ice like this since my last visit to Hawaii. First, choose what size you want (small, large, avalanche). After that, choose the type of ice cream you want in between the shave ice. Later, if you want toppings go ahead and add some. Lastly, add your choice of syrup (self serve!!) and top it off with condensed milk!
The ice was shaved really thin but still not Hawaii thin/​good! But I was still satisfied. I like how the syrup bar is self serve. I loaded mine with only two flavors which are always my go-​to flavors for shave ice: Melona and Guava. This place is not bad. I will come back for more!

They have a large selection of syrup that you can pour yourself on the shaved ice. Very cool idea since I get pretty sad when I run out of the syrup on the ice. I can go back and pour as many as I want and try different flavors. I also like that they put ice cream in the middle.
Why the 3? I’ve had better, like at ShaveIt. They should do something more original with the ice cream maybe? And hopefully in the future they will have a better syrup system, like a dispenser? so that you hands don’t get sticky. And better seating arrangement. :)

Stumbled across this booth at the 626 Night Market and decide to give it a try.
Bahh-​zinggg!
I love it. [Tiger’s Blood] has got to be the best flavor. i don’t know, I’ve only tried two thus far… but Tiger’s Blood is great. It has some kind of tropical, yummy flavor to it. And I don’t like fruit punch flavors normally, because they taste too artificial.
The other flavor I got is not worth mentioning because it tasted a lot like coconut… which I’m not a fan of :(
I also appreciate that they were really good about portions. If you think about it you’re paying essentially for some crushed ice and syrup… so they better pack on that ice! Haha.

I’m not sure how some people gave such negative reviews to the place… Understandably a place that has self syrup as much as you want can’t really make their own syrups.
I’m a fan of Sticky Fingers in Irvine which makes their syrup, but the size of the portions here and the ability to use any syrup you want sets this place apart. The ice cream is a good deal at 50 cents (the condensed milk and mochi extras etc. are really small in salsa containers).
Place is really well kept and they bus and wipe down the table after each guest leaves. Will be back!

(~_​~)
This is likely the only Hawaiian style shave ice shop in San Gabriel Valley so far, coming from someone who always craves for something new. Parking is in the street only, and not hard to find unless you come here at night or the weekend.
Décor here is pretty simple with a few tables and chairs. They offer 3 different sizes of shaved ice, any toppings cost extra, but they’ve got 30 flavors of syrups, which is all self-​serve.
Cup isn’t big, but they give you a lot of shaved ice, so this could backfire and cause a mess later. The shaved ice is not snow ice quality by any means — it tasted too much like those cheap versions of shaved ice which you can do it yourself since its very inexpensive.
Most of the syrups taste the same to me with just a slight difference and tasted too artificial. Afterwards, my stomach was not feeling well and I got Irritable Bowel Syndrome. If you’ve never tried Raspados Mexican version of shaved Ice), it is healthier and uses natural fruit juices instead of syrups.

Very good shaved ice. The ice is soft and the syrups are tasty. The price is very decent.
The only thing is since I pour the syrup myself and I didn’t want diabetes, I went very light. I didn’t know you need a lot of syrup to flavor the ice. Well I went back and while I made sure the tip didn’t touch my bowl, I’m not sure other people are that sanitary. Which makes me a little dubious about the cleanliness of a do-​it-​yourself place.

Came here for dessert after we ate at Alondra’s since it’s just a couple stores down. I’ve been looking for a place that would make shave ice as good as when I had it in Maui… but still no luck.
So once you walk in, there’s a board with different combinations that you could make yourself and everything you need to know about the sizes, flavors, and toppings. My BF and I both decided to each get a small ($ 2.50) expecting it to be a small, but it wasn’t that small at all. We could have shared a small! I don’t like sharing, but I couldn’t even finish the whole thing by myself.
They have over 20 different kinds of syrups where you can pour as much and mix as many as you want. I ended up getting pink lemonade, peach, and lychee. BF got green tea, wedding cake, and horchata (odd combination I know…). But if you ever feel like you don’t have enough syrup, just go back and pour some more!

Avalanche!!! Pretty cool shaved ice bar concept but it would be cool if it offered more.
Easy — pick a size, add some components (i.e. ice cream, mochi bites, red bean, condensed cream, etc.) then they give you the shaved ice ball of finely shave ice (think Hawaiian ice)…then you head over to their 20′ long counter of self serve syrups to top your ice with.
Everything from Granny Apple to Pina Colada… Banana, Coconut, Watermelon, Root Beer, Cherry, Dreamsicle, Lychee, …so many to name. But the downside is that the counter even though it has a drain trough on it — seems to be all sticky from the spilt syrup on it. My son kept putting down his cup while trying to pour the syrup on his ice and the cup kept getting stickier (he didn’t mind though as he liked the self serve concept).
They’ve got a big order (cup) that’s called the «Avalanche» — man that would give ya the ultimate brain freeze.
Cool concept, friendly service, but only street parking or the lot in the rear that you have to walk from… but the pricing seems a little high for shaved ice? its still frozen water and the syrups are dirt cheap. Shakas down the street has larger portions for the buck with syrups that seem like better quality.
Not bad… but it would had been nice if the concept had more than just the shaved ice (yes you can buy one of four flavor ice creams by itself that they can put in the shaved ice as an option). Even a topping bar would had been nice to add fresh fruit, yogurt and toppings to the ice. The concept seems a little light on the offerings. vs even a Taiwanese ice dessert you would get at a tea house. I am not sure if its worth finding parking, etc. for it unless you are eating nearby and its in walking distance. Seems like it would be a better concept in a higher foot traffic area or as an indoor mall kiosk.

Yay, now I don’t have to drive all the way to Get Shaved in Torrance for my shaved ice fix and lose a shoe (sticky floors).
I’m a FAN!
What makes Avalanche great is the DIY syrup bar! There’s plenty of flavors to choose from. You can put as much as you want and go back for seconds, thirds or fourths! The texture of the ice was perfect.
Check out my ICE:
Granny Smith Apple, Blue Raspberry & Fruit Punch syrup with Strawberry ice cream… Yummy!
The menu is kinda confusing. It looks as if toppings are included in the price but FYI, they are not. We asked the employee how many toppings we can get and he said, «as much as you want». My fault for thinking «as much as you want» meant FREE… oopsie! We ordered one small and one medium with 2 condensed milk and one marshmallow cream and it came out to be $ 8!
Price: Sizes: S ($ 2.50), M ($ 3), and Avalanche ($ 5.50). Toppings: $ 0.25 to $ 0.50 and ice cream is $ 0.50/scoop. All the toppings come in to-​go sauce containers.
Don’t forget to get a stamp card. Buy 10 get one FREE!

Anytime I have an excuse to be on the westside, I always stop at Brian’s for a shave ice, so it’s nice to have a similar place in the SGV now.
I came in Monday night for the free small cup promo. The small was actually a decent size! Especially for being free. Not sure how I feel about the DIY syrup bar, seems like it could get messy/​crowded, but I’ll have to check it out to see how it goes once they are busier. I had my usual: tiger’s blood, lychee, and… no melona here, so I went for margarita in honor of a friend ;). Everything was yummy, I just don’t have the syrup pour down, bf had to get up and put a splash more on mine near the end.
Overall, the people seem nice and they have a good variety, but Brian’s just has that atmosphere that I love.
I’ll come back.