Sweet Combforts
2222 Michelson Dr.
Irvine, CA 92612
If you've been following along on our food journey in order, you know that our last two reviews took place at the new Trade Food Hall in Irvine. We started with an excellent fried chicken sandwich and followed that up with the very impressive Mac Daddy Burger, which utilized two fried mac and cheese patties for the bun. Yes, we were feeling pretty good but needed something a little sweet to finish this evening off. Luckily, there is one place at Trade to get your sugar fix, so we headed to Sweet Combforts.
Sweet Combforts is brought to us by the same guys who run Pig Pen Delicacy, their neighbor at Trade, Portside, and GD Bro Burger. Sweet Combforts debuted at Coachella this spring, and one news article about them said they were the only reason to make the trek out to the desert. I'm not sure if that is a dis about the music or if their Instagram-worthy food is really that good.
Now, with a permanent home at Trade, their chef is Anne Marie Damaso. She hails from California's Central Coast but has worked at numerous OC restaurants in different capacities. At Sweet Combforts, she uses a scratch-made liege waffle batter infused with pearl sugars and then coated with cookie butter and assorted toppings. After the savory part of our visit to Trade, we were excited to try Sweet Combforts.
When entering the Trade Food Hall, Sweet Combforts will be the first stall on your left. The menu featured six different kinds of waffles on a stick with assorted toppings, five varieties of ice cream, and two shakes. Katie ordered for us, and about five to ten minutes later, we had our stuff. Let's see how it all turned out.
First, courtesy of Katie's excellent hand modeling is the Churro Crunch Waffle ($6). This waffle was coated with cinnamon sugar and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and finished off with a cream cheese drizzle. I was underwhelmed with this. I thought the churro flavor would be slightly more pronounced, but it fell flat. The only flavor I really got here was from the cereal on this. I would have liked a little more cream cheese drizzle, and the bottom of our waffle, near the stick, was very well done, almost bordering on burnt. We should have tried one of the other five kinds of waffles offered.
In case we did not have enough food during our visit to Trade, Katie also gave us some ice cream. She got me a Single Scoop of Peanut Butter and Chocolate ($3) and a Scoop of Salted Caramel ($3). Hers was the better of the two. The saltiness came through while the caramel lingered in the background. I was expecting a caramel ribbon through this, but no such luck with my bite. The peanut butter and chocolate were disappointing as well. With the amount of chocolate included here, calling this peanut butter and chocolate was grounds for false advertising. Little specks of chocolate, smaller than chips, do not add enough to get equal billing here. In fact, it could have been called vanilla ice cream because the tiny ribbon of peanut butter did not add too much, either. I don't know if they make their own ice cream, but a chocolate ice cream base with a large ribbon of peanut butter running through it would have made this way more enjoyable and more accurate to what they were going for.
Sweet Combforts did not really shine for us this evening. I'd give them another shot because they are the only dessert game in town at Trade. Next time, I'd try their Oreo cookie-inspired waffle or their version with Circus Animal cookies. The Cookie Monster Shake seems really popular and is my choice over the scoops of ice cream. A better option is to leave Trade and head to Afters Ice Cream on the other side of the 405 Freeway for their delicious Milky Bun or more comprehensive ice cream selection. Since you have mastered the parking at Trade, it should be no problem getting a spot at the always-crowded Diamond Jamboree.
Out of five mallets (because this place debuted at Coachella, which is held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, and you can't play polo without a mallet, or a horse for that matter), five being best to zero being worst, Sweet Combforts gets 2.5 mallets.
For more information about Sweet Combforts, head to their website here: http://www.sweetcombforts.com/
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