I've driven past TASTEAS on 41st a dozen times before finally pulling into the strip mall lot — the kind of spot where nail salons and insurance offices share parking with something that feels like it shouldn't be here, not in Sioux Falls, not yet. But there it is, bright and slightly chaotic, promising bubble waffles and rolled ice cream like it wandered off the streets of Koreatown and decided South Dakota was fine, actually.
The menu reads like a fever dream if you grew up on DQ Blizzards — taro milk tea, Thai tea with boba, mango smoothies thick enough to require structural engineering, and those Instagram-famous rolled ice cream cups where they scrape frozen cream into tight little scrolls. I ordered a honeydew milk tea because I wanted to feel like I was making adventurous choices, and watched them mix it behind the counter with the kind of assembly-line efficiency that comes from making a thousand of these a week.
The bubble waffle — that golden, grid-patterned cone — came out warm and crispy, stuffed with ice cream and fruit and a small avalanche of toppings. It's the kind of dessert that photographs better than it eats, if I'm being honest. By the third bite, structural integrity became a problem. Sticky hands, melting ice cream, the waffle going soft — it's a race against thermodynamics, and thermodynamics always wins.
But here's what I think TASTEAS actually is: it's a place for high schoolers on first dates, for families with kids who've seen these desserts on TikTok, for anyone who wants something that doesn't taste like every other dessert in Sioux Falls. It's not trying to be subtle. It's loud, sweet, colorful, and exactly what it says on the door — which, in a town still figuring out boba, feels like enough.
— Grace