This past weekend, I decided to check out the newly opened SoyTalk at Parker Place in Richmond. As their name suggests, SoyTalk’s offerings are soy-based and include soy milk, soy pudding, soy milk bread, and soy ice cream.
I was most excited to try out their soy ice cream as I love ice cream and typically enjoy vegan and non-dairy varieties due to my lactose-intolerance.
Canadian organic, non-GMO Soybeans
SoyTalk takes pride in using Canadian organic-certified soybeans in their products. Their soy milk is prepared using Japanese technology and does not include additives, anti-foaming agents, artificial flavours, emulsifiers, preservatives, and so forth. They also reverse osmosis water in their offerings.
SoyTalk’s soy milk comes in Signature or Lightly Sweetened ($5.99) as well as flavoured options like Black Sesame, Oreo, Rose, Matcha and more ($6.99). The soy milk beverages come in recyclable glass bottles.
They also offer soy milk bread ($5.95) and panini versions ($6.95 – $7.95) like Tofu Pudding Panini, Nutella Boba Panini, Strawberry Boba Cheese Panini and Tuna Cheese Panini.
For soy puddings, they offer Signature or Brown Sugar Varieties ($9.50) with options for toppings ($1 – $1.50) like taro, green bean, red bean, pearl barley and peanuts.
Perfect for the summer, SoyTalk offers soy ice cream ($5.50) in different flavours: original, black sesame, matcha, chocolate, and mango.
What I Tried
I went with two flavours of the soy ice cream that were available that day: Original and Matcha. I opted to have the ice cream to go and they came in really cute containers with lids.
The soy ice creams were lightly sweet and had an icy texture rather than smooth and silky. Both flavours were on point with the soy flavour being nice and prominent. I did think the Matcha ice cream could have used more sweeteners to offset some of the bitterness, but it was OK.
The ice creams come with a vegetarian “meat floss” which is a mix of seaweed and roasted soybeans as well as hot red bean tapioca pearls.
I liked the textural contrast of the vegetarian “meat floss” which also lended to a sweet and salty taste with the ice cream. The red bean tapioca pearls definitely were soft, chewy and tasted most definitely of red bean.
The ice creams are swirled into the cup so don’t be surprised that there is a hole.
The staff gave me the red bean tapioca pearls on the side as these were hot and would melt the ice cream too quickly for an ideal photo. So, they gave them to me in a cup separately. “Soy” nice!
Furthermore, I found that the soy ice creams (without the pearls) did not melt quickly at all. Therefore, it is certainly possible to get them to go and transport them home to your own freezer for later consumption.
I also got two flavoured soy milks: Rose and Black Sesame. The Rose had a nice, light floral flavour and was a bit frothy. The Black Sesame one was quite thick but had a reasonable Black Sesame taste.
According to the staff, their soy milks last five days refrigerated but only an hour at room temperature.
Interior
Soy Talk faces No. 3 Road at Parker Place. It’s a small shop but they have a good number of dining tables for customers.
Overall Impression of SoyTalk
I’d definitely go back and have their soy ice creams again as I really liked the taste as well as both the vegetarian meat floss and red bean pearls toppings. The soy milks didn’t impress me much as the flavours and texture didn’t really standout tome. Furthermore, I regularly make soy milk at home so buying soy milk isn’t that appealing to me in general. Rating: 3.5/5
Soytalk Revisit November 2019
I revisited Soytalk this past November under a media tasting and here are a few items that I tried.
The restaurant stopped using the cute branded clear cups due to costs. If you dine-in, the soy ice cream is presented in a mug. The soy ice cream still tastes just as good with the roasted soybean and seaweed toppings along with the red-bean filled tapioca pearls.
The soy puddings can be enjoyed hot or cold. Their cold soy pudding is served with tapioca pearls, red bean pearls or green bean pearls.
The hot soy pudding had longan, dates and a brown sugar syrup. It was ultra-comforting for the fall/winter season.
Soytalk seems to be continuing to revise their menu and improving their products. Be sure to follow them on social media to see their latest offerings.
SoyTalk
1410-4380 No 3 Rd, Richmond, BC
www.instagram.com/soytalk/