Icy treats: Refreshing raspados, paletas and other cooling desserts
For 17 years, the Abundis family has kept Oakland supplied with sweet, frozen treats from its colorful storefront in the Fruitvale Public Market.
“My dad came from Mexico in the late ’80s, and he first started with a little push cart and then got a bigger ice-cream truck,” says Gris Abundis, manager of Nieves Cinco de Mayo. “He learned how to make raspados from old family recipes and ice cream from working with his uncles.”
Nieves Cinco de Mayo is what’s known as a neveria, one of the many Bay Area establishments that serve delightful desserts typically made with shaved ice, flavored syrups, spices and fresh fruit. This shop does a brisk business in raspados, which are grainy slushes doused in a rainbow assortment of fragrant syrups.
Raspados are named for a tool that street vendors use to make shaved ice in Mexico, particularly in open-air markets and coastal districts. “If you go to Mexico you see these guys on the street, and they don’t have an ice machine or snow-cone machine,” Abundis says. “They have a very thin blade on a metal box and they scrape it against a big block of ice.”
On a hot summer day, there’s nothing quite as refreshing as an icy raspado or paleta (popsicle) or mangonada. with their invigorating fruit essences and hydrating powers.
Here is a sampling of Bay Area shops to try the next time you’re craving a cool treat:
Paleta Planeta, San Jose
Creativity is the name of the game at this cute space-age shop that opened late last year in downtown San Jose across from City Hall.
Owners Luis, Mauricio and Gabriel Salazar are brothers who started with a long-held family recipe and in four years have crafted a galaxy of 200 rotating flavors. The current bestseller is the Cookie Monster, vanilla studded with Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies. Other popular paletas ($4.95 each), are two of the creamy, milk-based style, Blueberry Horchata and Pumpkin Spice Cafe, and two fruity/floral, water-based flavors, Guanabana, made with fresh soursop, and Jamaica, made with the shop’s hibiscus mix.
Besides daily hours at the shop, this summer you will find Planeta’s paletas at the Viva Parks family-friendly events on Mondays from June 23 to Aug. 25.
Scooped ice cream, also made inhouse, comes in fruity flavors, fun cookie- and cereal-based flavors as well as sophisticated creations like Ferrero Rocher, Cafe Horchata and Biscoff.
Details: Hours are noon-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday and noon-9 p.m. Friday-Sunday/ 150 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose; www.paletaplaneta.com
Guanatos Ice Cream, Bay Point and Oakley
These colorful outposts in northern Contra Costa County draw long lines for their homemade products made with tropical and seasonal California fruits. The ice cream has a decadent, Haagen-Dazs quality; for a hit of parlor nostalgia order it in a banana split or hot-fudge sundae.
Paletas stand out for their interesting flavors. One is chongos zamoranos, a traditional Michoacan dessert made by curdling milk with rennet and adding sugar and spices. It’s like sweet custard on a stick with chewy bits similar to cookie dough – a total dairy dude’s bite ($4).
The diablito comes with a huge portion of shaved ice mixed with tamarind pulp, lime, chamoy and Tajin powder. It’s a flavor punch especially when sucked through the tamarind-coated straw.
Details: Summer hours are 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday at 2474 Willow Pass Road, Bay Point, and 3330 Main St., Oakley; www.guanatosicecream.com
Exquisitos Raspados, Hayward
Walk into this no-frills establishment by the BART tracks and you’ll find a chef’s counter piled with fresh fruits and vegetables. This is where the magic happens: The proprietor chops and slices and dumps everything onto shaved ice scooped out of a plastic cooler. Then come the toppings of dairy, fruit syrup and pineapple, papaya and jicama.
What the menu identifies as a monjita turns out to be shaved ice, the fruit of your choice, golden syrup and condensed milk piled in a cup in layers. It’s decadent with the thick milk but somehow refreshing ($7). A diablito mimics a frozen Bloody Mary spiked with wedges of mango and cucumber.
There’s a large assortment of ice creams in “international flavors” – guanabana, the snack cake Gansito and nance, floral-scented fruits with notes of Parmesan — and a fridge of paletas to enjoy off the stick.
Details: Open daily until 8 p.m. at 596 A St., Hayward; www.yelp.com/biz/exquisitos-raspados-hayward-3
La Imperial Neveria y Paletería, Hayward
The pink color scheme and glowing advertisements of extravagant desserts lend this place a Baskin-Robbins feel. But instead of a banana split, why not try a pepino (cucumber) split with lime and chili? Or what about a Sandia Loca, a half-cut watermelon stabbed with skewers of fruit and Mexican candy like a delicious porcupine?
There is a long fridge of ice creams and sorbets in flavors like mamey sapote, Ferrero Rocher and even tequila. Customers order them by the cone or in to-go containers to take home. Pastel-colored patelas come from local producer United Paleteria Y Neveria, which has its own shops around the Bay.
A fun thing to order is the Cajita Feliz, or “Happy Meal” ($7.75). It’s a cardboard fruit carton repurposed to hold what must be a pound of fresh and frozen strawberries, whipped cream and strawberry-flavored wafers – it will indeed make you happy, then comfortably sleepy.
Details: Open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. daily at 214 Harder Road, Suite B, Hayward; 408-469-6104
Nieves Cinco de Mayo, Oakland and San Francisco
Customers value this happily decorated nook in the Fruitvale Public Market for its boutique approach to dessert. “For the tamarind syrup, we buy big big boxes of dried tamarind and crack each (pod) open, and then it’s boiled and condensed into a syrup,” manager Gris Abundis says. “The mangoes are fresh and the strawberries are, too. And we work in smaller batches to keep everything on the fresher side.”
The most popular thing here is the mangonada, a bright mixture of chopped mango, mango sorbet, chili powder and lime. The owner refined his own version by listening to customer suggestions, making it unique from blah ones that come straight out of a freezer. Another often-ordered item is tejuino, a fermented drink made from corn dough, lime and shaved ice – the sourish kick refreshes under the hot Oakland sun.
Details: Open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. at 3340 East 12th St., #2, Oakland, and daily at 3052 16th St., San Francisco; (510) 533-6296
Paleteria Los Manguitos, Redwood City
Husband and wife team Jose Alvarez and Catalina Valencia started Paleteria Los Manguitos in the North Fair Oaks neighborhood of unincorporated Redwood City in May 2011, inspired by the ice cream artisans and flavors of Michoacan, Mexico. Their menu offers 34 paleta varieties that are both dairy- and water-based.
Their café paleta, one of the dairy-based variety, tasted like top-tier coffee ice cream on a stick, with every bit of creaminess but less mess. And their fresas con crema paleta had juicy frozen strawberry bits coated in sweet cream, lending it a satisfying blend of textures. According to Alvarez, their most popular menu items are the fresas con crema (the version served in a cup, not frozen) made with sweetened condensed milk, strawberries, granola and shredded coconut, followed by their mangoneadas, featuring chopped mangoes, mango pulp, chamoy sauce and tamarind candy.
Details: Open 8 a.m.-9:30 p.m. daily at 3133 Middlefield Road, Redwood City; losmanguitos.com.
Livin Sweet, Belmont
At Livin Sweet, you’ll find the same attention to detail lavished on the desserts here as in its interior design, which has elegant touches like pink velvet seats and neon signage overlaid against a wall of fabric flowers. The Mexican dessert shop opened in early 2022 in Belmont by owner David Ibarra, who was looking for a local spot to serve traditional Mexican treats, according to the city of Belmont.
The shop offers a selection of raspados, where the texture of the ice chunks is by design coarser than you might find in a traditional snow cone. The larger ice chunks let the coolness linger longer on the tongue. The mango raspado is particularly refreshing on a hot day, but you’ll find an array of satisfying treats here, like diablitos: cold, sweet and spicy raspados topped with tamarind candies, chamoy and valentina hot sauce, plus smoothies, sundaes, aguas frescas, and fresh fruit in abundance.
Details: Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday at 1020 6th Ave., Belmont; togo.dylish.com/l/livin-sweet.
Snacks Antojitos Mexicanos, San Mateo
Inside the bright pink and purple walls of this cafe in downtown San Mateo, you’ll find an array of snacks that are equally colorful, and bursting with vivid flavor. They’ve got paletas, raspados — and, if you’re feeling a bit more peckish, generously-portioned tortas.
The raspados, topping crunchy ice flakes with a rich fruit syrup, are the perfect chilly sugar rush to beat the afternoon heat and re-energize for the day ahead. The fresa flavor — strawberry — has chunks of fresh strawberries in it too.
Details: Open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily at 128 North B St., San Mateo.