The sweet spot — island offerings tempt with plenty of variety

BY SKYLER OBISPO
Journal Staff

Residents of Guam are spoilt for choice when it comes to finding something to satisfy their sweet tooth.

From north to south, the Journal looked at 28 dessert shops, cafes, and bakeries to see how these places hit the sweet spot.

Love Crêpes is a Parisian style café located at The Plaza Shopping Center and opened its doors in April 2023. According to Journal files, the shop saw success in its opening week selling more than 300 crêpes.

The cafe was opened by Céline San Nicolas, who is also the president and owner of Frances Wines Etc. and created Love Crêpes based on her childhood, being born and raised in France.

The shop’s two most selling items are its Nutella Deluxe, a crêpe paired with fresh strawberries, bananas, toasted almonds, homemade Chantilly cream, and vanilla ice cream with Nutella chocolate drizzled over the top, and the Harajuku Inspiration, another crêpe inspired by the streets of Tokyo which is served with vanilla custard, the same Chantilly cream, strawberries, bananas, vanilla ice cream, and salted caramel sauce.

Mad Bingsu is a dessert cafe located on the first floor of the Guam International Trade Center. It specializes in Korean food, dessert, and Australian coffee, but its most notable menu item is its selection of bingsu.

Bingsu (or bingsoo) is a milk-based shaved ice dessert with origins in Korea. Like other shaved ice desserts, it is flavored using a number of different ingredients like fruits, chocolate, and green tea.

One of Mad Bigsu’s popular menu items is its dark chocolate bingsu. It is layered shaved ice with cookie bits, chocolate ice cream, house-made foam, and garnished with dark cocoa powder and a whole cookie.

Ice Una is a Taiwanese shaved ice shop in Tumon and is one of several snow ice shops under the Jiankang Foods Co., Ltd. and has locations in over 20 countries. Kylie Huang is the owner of Ice Una Guam and decided to franchise with the company to capitalize on Guam’s hot climate.

Christopher Su, manager at Ice Una Guam, told the Journal that Taiwan shaved ice or creamy shaved ice has comparable products across Asia, such as bingsu and halo-halo from the Philippines. Like those desserts, the shaved ice Ice Una offers uses frozen dairy for its shaved ice and sources all of its ingredients directly from Taiwan.

Su said that the shop does not use artificial colorings but natural ingredients to get its flavors and colors which gives it a subtle sweetness, plus the designs of its desserts, like its five layered shaved ice is what helps make the experience fun for customers.

Patisserie PariSco was opened by husband-and-wife team Michael and Shizuka Louboutin in March 2012 at Sakura Noodle House, Shizuka’s father’s restaurant. In 2021, the couple opened their first stand-alone location in Tamuning and a second location in Yigo earlier this year.
Michael and Shizuka serve as the shop’s head pastry chef and head cake designer respectively.

The shop offers a number of pastries, savory snacks, and drinks, but more recently has been selling mochi donuts which have seen popularity across mainstream social media. In addition, PariSco offers custom cake services for celebrations and customers can work with Shizuka directly to design their cake.

Cafe Rocona is a small dessert shop located in Tumon across the Blessed Diego de San Vitores Church. The shop offers several traditional desserts including Danish pastries, cream puffs, and cakes, but also serves Japanese cake rolls and panna cotta.

The shop is run by Jay Ilano, who imports roughly 85% of the cafe’s ingredients from Japan; the most important ingredient of which is premium Japanese cake flour. Ilano said that the cafe uses it in all of its baked goods. He said the flour is lighter and offers a subtle sweetness.

The cafe will be closed for renovations and plans to reopen at the beginning of next year.

Asiga Guam is a plant-based ice cream and coffee shop located in East Agana. The shop serves a number of baked goods alongside their ice cream and coffee offerings, including cookies, cakes, and chiffon.

Nearly all of its menu items are vegan or vegetarian with some exceptions being those made with eggs or honey, but the shop’s main seller is its plant-based ice cream. The menu rotates each month. Asiga Guam told the Journal that it wants to always try new things and sources some of its ingredients locally.

Dikiki Donuts is a miniature donut shop that has been around since March 2015. Jimu Dimag wanted to supplement his income from working in the hotel industry for a family vacation and saw that opening his own business was a way to do it.

The shop started as a food truck, a $25,000 venture on Dimag’s part, and began selling donuts at local night markets and events. Today, he continues operating the food truck but has opened a kiosk at Guam Premier Outlets.

The donuts are made to order, Dimag said. The allure for customers is witnessing the process of their donuts being made and the sweet aroma that comes as a result, he said.

Dikiki Donuts carries some of the usual donut flavors: glaze, powder, and cinnamon, but began offering unique flavors and toppings like cereal, ube drizzle, and Nutella Oreo.

Snowberry Guam is a Korean style dessert cafe merging bingsu and ice cream. The shop has two locations, one in Tumon and the other in the Agana Shopping Center. The shop has more than 21 different bingsu flavors and merges other desserts like halo-halo, boba, cereal, and mochi.

Boong’s Cafe is a Japanese dessert shop that has locations in Tumon and Tamuning in the Village of Donki and a third coming soon at the Micronesian Mall. It is owned by Gun Park who opened the shop in 2022 and serves taiyaki, a popular street food in Japan that consists of a fish-shaped pastry that is traditionally filled with red bean paste. At Boong’s Cafe, other fillings are available including, Nutella, custard, and Oreo.

Park told the Journal that the shop’s most popular item is its ICE-Boong, where customers can pair their favorite taiyaki filling with soft serve ice cream.

Frances Bakehouse is a small-batch bakery located in Tumon that bakes a variety of breads and pastries. Some of its offerings include shokupan, bagels, croissants, cookies, and cakes.

Additionally, the bakery has partnered with Sundays Ice Cream. Online orders for its ice cream can be picked up at the bakery. Some Sundays Ice Cream flavors include olive oil pistachio, earl gray honeycomb, and coconut candy.

Crumb Artisinal Bakery opened its doors in 2023 inside the Pay-Less Supermarket at the Micronesia Mall. The bakery is owned by Aubry Duenas and Christopher Carriaga and offers a variety of pastries. Additionally, the bakery provides custom cake services for celebrations.

It began in the couple’s home. Duenas went to culinary school at the Guam Community College and learned how to design and bake cakes during the pandemic and would regularly post her work on social media. Carriaga built her a small, home bakery to hone her craft and a year later they opened Crumb.

Duenas said the most popular menu items are the full-sized cakes, macarons, and cake pops and around 90% of the bakery’s menu are made in house, including its fillings, batters, and frostings. Additionally, all its offerings are made from scratch.

Cafe Gudcha is a cafe located in Tumon that serves all organic, fair trade, coffees and teas as well as plant based products from ingredients sourced locally. The menu follows many traditional cafe offerings for coffee, teas, and food.

Additionally, the cafe has partnered with Olfactorycreative to release an exclusive matcha inspired parfum.

Snow Monster Guam is a dessert shop specializing in trendy desserts. “Overwhelming variety” is Snow Monster’s claim to fame according to Chris Masterenko, owner of Snow Monster Guam. It is home to more than 50 different flavors of handcrafted ice cream, cookies,  macarons, freeze dried sweets, and Dragon’s Breath, cereal poured over with liquid nitrogen. Masterenko opened the shop with his daughter, Arielle, in 2018.

Recently, the shop is shifting towards more baked goods to include cheesecakes in the near future, but Masterenko told the Journal he wants to explore unusual flavors; creme de menthe, red velvet, and Cookie Monster, to name a few. This emulates his shop’s mission to bring something to the customer they have not experienced before. “The goal is to bring things people are not exposed to,” he said.

Pecoli Guam is a Japanese style dessert shop located in Tamuning at the Pia Marine Condominium. The shop offers a number of pastries, but it has some unique offerings such as cake shooters (miniature cakes in shot glasses), macaron cubed cakes, and roll cake towers.
Pecoli provides custom cake services with cakes baked with Japanese cake flour.

Fujita Creamery is an ice cream shop that offers soft serve ice cream that opened in July at the Tumon Trade Center. The shop offers regular flavors, but also offers unique flavors such as matcha, earl gray, and pumpkin spice and can be topped with a number of fruits and sauces.
In addition, the shop serves slushies and acai bowls for a healthier alternative.

Cafe Mayflour is a coffee and bakery located just outside the gate of Summerville Residents in Upper Tumon. The shop opened in 2019 and sells macarons, cakes, coffee, and other pastries. In addition, the shop also provides seasonal offerings like a roll cake with milk nama cream filling in a chocolate ganache for Christmas last year and pumpkin spice cold foam for the Fall season this year.

Asap Bakery is located in Dededo and serves the regular list of desserts and offers cake services, but has a unique offering in its signature portuguese tarts (po tarts). Po tarts are custard filled tarts with a flaky crust.

Patty Cakes Bakery is located in Tamuning and serves local deserts as well as several original flavors of pies; one of which being Manha. It is close to a banana cream pie, but the banana is substituted for young coconut and custard. Some of the bakery’s other top sellers are its mochi cupcakes, and roskette.

Niki’s Cake and Tea is a bubble tea shop in the Micronesia Mall, it offers a number of handmade cakes and pastries as well as fruit teas. The shop is currently closed, but will be opening Niki’s Pastry Shop on the second floor of the mall’s food court in the near future.

Häagen-Dazs is a retail ice cream parlor that originated in New York and has locations all over the world. On Guam, the chain has four locations: the Micronesian Mall, Guam Premier Outlets, JP Superstore, and the Crowne Plaza Resort Guam. Beyond their ice cream and sorbets, customers can purchase crepes, waffles, and chocolate ice cream fondue.

The Coconut Tree Company is located in Hagatna and serves handmade coconut candy confectionaries. The shop is owned by Gary Tanaka and Joe Connelly who created the company through the Guam Unique Merchandise and Arts program.

The confections are slow cooked over a stove and hand formed into shape and come in traditional, coffee, mocha, chocolate, mango, pineapple, taro, ube and matcha flavors.

Judy’s Treats is a dessert shop located in Yigo that serves a number of traditional pastries but also some Filipino desserts and dishes such as ginataang bilo-bilo and halo-halo. On top of its desserts, it also serves flavored lattes, boba, frappes, and smoothies.

Some of the shop’s top selling items are its pistachio Dubai chocolate bar, Cookie Monster cookies, and special palabok.

Cold Stone Creamery is a chain ice cream parlor based in the U.S. with two locations on Guam: Guam Premier Outlets and the Micronesian Mall. The menu has standard ice cream flavors but cycles in seasonal or promotional flavors.

In addition to the ice cream served on a cup or cone, the shop offers ice cream cakes and sells pints of its ice cream catalog or custom mixes to go.

Cinnabon is a chain bakery restaurant that serves cinnamon rolls, coffee, and frozen drinks. Its headquarters is based in Atlanta, Ga. and it opened its first restaurant on Guam in 2010 according to Journal files. The restaurant has three locations in the Micronesian Mall, the Agana Shopping Center, and a kiosk at the Guam Premier Outlets.

In October, Cinnabon Guam was purchased by a local group that includes Foremost Foods Inc., Coca-Cola Beverage Co, Glimpses of Guam*, Good To Go, Subway, and Chili’s.

Subway Guam sells several flavors of freshly baked cookies to go along with its sandwiches. Flavors include chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia nut, oatmeal raisin, raspberry cheesecake, and double chocolate chip. In addition, Subway has two sweet sidekick options in its Footlong Cookie and the Cinnabon Footlong Churro.

While many of the businesses on this list have been around for more than a year, two new businesses have opened in Tumon that offer their own unique perspective.

rCubedCoffee Co. opened its doors at the Acanta Mall in September and was founded by Christopher Finklea Sr. and his wife Kendra Finklea as co-owners, with Christopher Finklea as CEO.

Kendra Finklea said the shop was founded on the couple’s relationship with coffee and Christopher’s struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. “It began when I found that my husband had PTSD and something that brought us together was sitting down and having a cup of coffee,” she said.

The overall vibe the Finkleas want their shop to have is mindfulness. There are games, puzzles, and books available for patrons as well as conversation cards with questions to promote discussion and thoughtful reflection.

The coffee shop does not serve food outside of small snacks that pair with the coffee. Christopher Finklea said that food takes away from the experience of having a conversation with someone, but plans are in the works to incorporate smaller pastries to the menu.

The couple source their coffee from all over the world including Peru, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, and Guatemala which is roasted every Thursday. Customers have the option to purchase the coffee themselves as whole beans, Keurig Cups, or pour-over UFOs. In addition, the shop sells ready to drink coffees and teas.

The Finkleas wants customers to know that the coffee shop is a safe space for those going through the daily grind. “This is a place of refuge,” said Kendra. “They can just come and sit. We don’t have a problem getting them a drink. This is a place where they can be themselves.”

Like rCubedCoffee, the Guam Sweet Spot opened in September. It is owned by Penalyn Deseo who studied culinary arts at Guam Community College and like many, practiced baking during the pandemic. She started with ube pandesal and sold them to her family and friends and grew in baking more desserts after that.

Prior to opening the shop, Deseo told the Journal that she and her husband were in the market to purchase land for a home, but when plans for that fell through, the couple decided to purchase a property in Tumon for roughly $30,000 to open the Guam Sweet Spot. Deseo is also part of GUMA’s most recent cohort of businesses and had completed its training and mentoring program.

Deseo’s family helps her run the shop throughout the week. The shop’s top selling item currently are its mochi donuts. Similar to a regular donut, these donuts are also deep fried and topped with different flavorings but have a chewy interior. Deseo told the Journal that she takes pride in the variety of flavors she has for the mochi donuts. Flavors cycle on a near daily basis and include Nutella, Biscoff, creme brulee, and churros. The Guam Sweet Spot also offers custom cakes and serves other pastries and drinks. mbj