Vampire Penguin

Love this place and wish it was not so far to get to. Had one in Davis and I’m really sad to see it go hopefully there will be another one up soon.

The place was so dark inside we questioned if they were open.
Then they were all out of Boba and out of Flan. The takes out half the menu. I just wanted to leave but sick we paid ro park and this is specifically why we parked, we stayed.
The potion was very small. It barely came past the middle of the cup and
The topping was a teaspoon size.
There were other customers too.
The guys seemed more interested in unpacking supplies than the customers.
Stay closed today or get it done before you open.

Five stars due to the fact that I have never had a bad time at any of Vampire Penguin resturants I have been to. (laguna or downtown), even when my favorite dish isnt there. It just makes me crave it even more for the next visit. Live or visit Sacramento, Ca in the spring or winter. This place is the best visit for heat relief and relaxation.

Went here for the first time with the girlfriend and her sisters. Being from the Midwest we don’t have anything remotely like this and suffice it to say it was simply delicious. My girlfriend and I ordered a large taro and strawberry shaved ice with lychee and jackfruit. Her sisters had the cheesecake, green tea, and some other favors. They were all delicious but I’d have to say the cheesecake one was my favorite. The only thing that sucked about this location is that it is downtown and finding parking can be a pain, otherwise highly worth it if you’re looking for delicious shaved ice.

This location is kind of hard to get to especially if you’re not used to driving downtown. I hate parallel parking so coming here definitely makes the stress of parking worth it!
I have only ever come here to have their halo-​halo shaved ice so I can’t comment on any of their other dishes! It literally tastes just like the Filipino dessert, but in shaved ice form. And better!
Bonus: they have an offer on groupon! Make sure to grab one of these especially if you’re iffy on their product. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed!

The shaved snow itself is 5-​Star!!! Amazing dessert. Every flavor I have had has been delicious. The taro is my favorite so far. The snow is… well, it is like eating sweet snow! Not icy at all and not creamy as much as ice cream or froyo. It is soft and flavorful and just the best. I am in love!
Certain flavors of the snow are only available in the «specials» which is a total bummer because the vanilla snow in the «dulche de leche» would be GREAT on its own. I don’t know why they have this policy, and the employee I asked didn’t give me a reason. I’m not personally into having a ton of toppings every time, but if you are, nab one of the specials.
The macaron ice cream sandwiches are super tasty too, but mostly because they have nice ice cream flavors in them. They also have little boxes of regular macarons but these were TERRIBLE. Seriously the worst macarons I have ever had. They were chewy in a bad way, tasted extremely artificial, and seemed like they were made a week or two ago and left out to sit. Very disappointed, especially for the price. Do NOT waste your money on these. I couldn’t even give them away they were so bad.
But hey! Don’t go for the macarons! Go for the shaved snow! I am addicted and stop in every time I visit Sacramento! I wish there was something similar where I live.

So my friend got a group on for my bday for here at like 5pm.
And might I say I love it. The flavored are amazing. The girl at the front is so nice and very friendly.
Will definitely come back

Ages since my last shaved snow at the original VP, seeing a photo posted here by Philip R. made me pretty jelly. Wandered in on a Saturday afternoon, parked at the garage on 10^th and L. Security guard at the door was the first thing I noticed. They were quite busy, full tables, only one person behind the counter! Since the shave snow plates seemed to be taking awhile, I looked at the rest of the menu, and decided on a macaron ice cream sandwich. They have cookies and cream, mango, taro, Thai tea, birthday cake, and strawberry cheesecake flavors ready-​to-​go in the freezer in the back. I picked the strawberry cheesecake and it was pretty good, light enough sugary snack, cool and refreshing to tide us over before we migrated to Coin-​Op Game Room across the street. May return if I’m ever on The Kay again sometime soon. Halo-​Halo is the gold standard, as is the Strawberry Cheesecake, but my new fave is the Mexican Candy shave snow, which is practically like a mangonada — I’ve tried at the original location but somehow have never been to the Davis or Elk Grove ones, weird considering how often I’m in both cities…

Same yummy desserts, different location…
This is the second location I’ve tried their delicious shaved snow desserts. I had the Mexican Candy here, the 4^th flavor I’ve tried since first time visiting a Vampire Penguin. I like it! BUT not as much as I like the chocolate flavored desserts like Tuxedo, Twix and S’moreos. Mexican Candy was fruity and sour, different from the first ones I’ve tried. My goal is to sample each flavor before I pick a favorite… my hubby, on the other hand, has been stuck on the first flavor he tried, S’moreos. For the newbie, shaved snow is a Taiwanese specialty and is different from shaved ice. It is somewhat like ice cream but it’s mostly non-​dairy. The desserts are served with toppings such as condensed milk, fruit, syrups and candies.
This location is in downtown Sacramento and it’s always difficult finding parking here. It’s best to have something else planned with your visit here. I mean, just coming here in downtown to have dessert and then go is poor planning to me. That is my only pet peeve about this location is that parking is a challenge unless, of course, you live nearby or near the area then that’s awesome for you! The savings that I gained from the Groupon I purchased would’ve have just gone to the metered parking. I wish they would expand to Roseville one day.
Located just right across the street from Coin-​Op Game Room in downtown Sacramento.

Tiny shop located across from the Coin-​Op Game Room in downtown Sacramento. Only street metered parking or paid garages nearby. About 6 tables inside and no outdoor seating. Security guard onsite which is great because so many homeless people loitering outside trying to get some of your money. Really wanted to get their cute bottle but they don’t even sell boba here! Only shaved ice and macron ice cream sandwiches.
*~Macron Ice Cream Sandwich~* $ 5
Taro
Strawberry Cheesecake
Birthday Cake
Cookies n Cream
Mango
Thai Tea
My Order:
Macron Ice Cream Sandwich: Taro, Mango, Thai Tea
Small VP Green Tea: ($ 5) Green Tea Snow, Sliced Almonds, Red Bean (subbed red bean w/​Lychee Jelly) and added fresh mochi (+$ 0.75)
Pretty soft snow but didn’t like the individual toppings very much. They gave me less fresh mochi than the lychee jelly that was included with my order! The mochi was also covered in so much powder that I could hardly taste the mochi. Waste of money. =/​The strawberries weren’t sweet but quite sour. There was hardly any condensed milk drizzled on top so next time would ask for them to add more. Sadly enough, the macon ice cream sandwiches were better than their snow. I’ve heard good thing about their other location on Stockton. May try that one but wouldn’t come back here.

I’ve heard so many great things and amazing pictures of this place. But I didn’t know there was one located here in downtown until recently, through groupon which I didn’t purchase.
The hubby and I tried something simple, not the specialty items (even though they looked spectacular!), but so we know what we were running into. Just a large, with two flavors and two toppings. We got taro and green tea topped with red beans and condensed milk. Easy way to go right? Man, was it delicious! The snow was the perfect consistency of snow, easy to eat, melt-​in-​your-​mouth deliciousness. Even the flavors were blended well so there were no «empty spots» in the snow. The taro was the more preferred flavor of the two, and the condensed milk and red beans were a good addition.
The shop is a little small, so if they get busy… good luck finding a table. ;)
Will definitely be coming back, maybe to try a specialty one. Haha.

The place has very nice and relaxing atmosphere. I like the service, and the shaved ice was delicious. I was never fan of ICE, but I can see myself going back to them again.
I loved the strawberry cheesecake ice. Taxedo looks good too.

My new fav cold dessert! A new twist in between shaved ice and ice cream. So light and fluffy, it just melts in your mouth! The texture looks nothing like how it tastes, similar to cotton candy – looks fluffy yet melts right in your mouth, same concept.
Staff is super friendly, definitely reccommend trying their specialty ones if you can’t decide what to choose. Strawberry cheecake is BOMB! Flavor is on point! Mango and Stawberry flavors for those fruit cravings. Plus, you get to choose toppings.
I want to come back to try more specialty ones!

Ok so I will admit when I first saw the name of this place at the Elk Grove location I thought «WTF? How stupid, it makes no sense.» Well it still doesnt but that doesnt matter… Vampire Penguin is like shaved ice on crack! It is sooo good. I had no idea you could do this with shaved ice. I myself got the S’moreos and it was delicious. I also tried the Strawberry Cheesecake one that a friend had and I will be ordering that one next time I am here. Best of all it tastes like an indulgence but you dont feel all bloated and yucky when you’re done.

I love the pop art all over yet still minimal look of the place. Perfectly placed punches of colorful art adorn these walls along with that cute penguin that reminds me of my Sanrio little girl days. The menu is very small but seems to have exactly what you want or are craving at that moment. Flavors like Strawberry Cheesecake, Twix, Mexican Candy, and a Filipino favorite Halo-​Halo. Every plate is visually appealing and the toppings perfectly accompany the creamy cool flavors of the shaved ice. My last pick was the Dulce de Leche which was surrounded by bananas, drizzled with caramel and topped with some yummy flan. This is a great place for a cool summer treat.

After a lunch outing with colleagues we decided to drop into this location as it was fairly close where we had ramen (salty — needed to balance it out with something sweet). I was super excited because I hadn’t had VP in almost a year.
Ambiance: At about 1pm it was completely dead, spanish music was blaring with a few employees standing behind the counter. We got our orders quickly and our large group of nine was able to sit together due to how vacant it was. They switched over the music to early 2000’s so I def appreciated that.
Price: Reasonable, $ 7 for the strawberry cheesecake or any other specialty item which can easily be shared between two people.
Food: I ordered the strawberry cheesecake as it is my favorite item on the menu. I was highly disappointed. First off they were out of cheesecake bites which made the shaved iced into just strawberry with brown sugar on top, so I could have just built my own and saved money. They did have a post-​it note at the register, but the cashier failed to mention it to me… if someone didn’t point that out to me, I wouldn’t have known at all. They skimp on the condensed milk, the location on Stockton set a high expectation and K Street failed to meet it in various ways. No cheesecake bites, less condensed milk topping, they even jibbed us on the strawberries. NOT COOL, especially because parking is a nightmare in this part of downtown. One thing I did think was cool was that they had a flavor called Mexican Candy which was mango flavor with chili powder. My colleagues ordered that one and they absolutely loved it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and possibly come back and try something else, Stockton Blvd location just set the bar real high and these guys didn’t reach it for me.
Parking: Street parking, parking structures, but obviously no lot in this part of downtown. Around noon time it was a nightmare, I can’t imagine how it is in the evenings.
Overall: MEH. Don’t appreciate the customer service too much since she didn’t mention the cheesecake scenario to me, my order was mediocre as mentioned above. Maybe I’ll come back.

Came here with my nieces Saturday. The girls were so excited. They wanted their Halo Halo shaved ice. That’s their favorite. I love their Mexican Candy. We ended up with both. I had a groupon so I ended paying like $ 3 for it all. The girls finished the Halo Halo and they even helped finish my Mexican Candy too. Love the location. It’s closer to me and I don’t have to drive all the way to the south to get shaved ice anymore.

I, too, can now join in with the many other reviewers saying «Well, it’s shaved ice, but it’s not, exactly…»
My closest example might be Dippin’ Dots, which I may or may not have been obsessed with as a child, calling it «Astronaut Ice Cream» and exclusively eating it by touching my tongue to the dots so they all stuck. But I digress. VP has that same «ice-​y yet creamy» texture that’s just perfect for these blistering hot days.
I ordered the Twix flavor, which totally satisfied my chocolate/​caramel craving without leaving me feeling gross and sticky like you might after… eating chocolate on a hot day!!! There were also tasty cookie crumblies in it. I was pleasantly surprised by how cheap it was!

Convenient new spot downtown. The space is small with some limited seating but it is clean and modern looking.
The good:
We had the Mexican candy and Green tea vp. Both small, but generous portions. If you like mangonadas, get the Mexican candy with the caramel sauce on the side. You can add sauce as you like, but I find it too sweet and overpowering. I wish they had mango as a topping instead of watermelon but it’s still good.
Good to know:
Because this dish is mostly shaved ice, don’t expect it to fill you up for very long even if you dont share or split something. It does help satisfy a sweet tooth craving.
I also ordered a milk tea with boba. Was less impressed with this, hence the three stars instead of four. The boba was a smaller size, which I like, and cooked ok. But I got 75% ice in my drink! For nearly four bucks, I was expecting more. I know this is a shaved ice establishment, but if a dollar more gets me a delicious mangonada freeze somewhere else, I might wait for something a little more filling.
State workers get a discount with id.
Would I recommend? Yes, but be sure to ask for less ice if you’re getting a boba drink.

Well this sure was neat. I linked up with my wingman and his family for a sweet treat this afternoon. Let me go on record and say that shave snow is not the same as shave ice. This stuff is so fine that it eats like a solid, then dissolves into a liquid full of flavor on the palette. But the stuff has mass, so it’ll hold its own on the utensil of your choice! To quote from Kristina’s review: …is much softer and «lighter» than the shaved ice we’re used to. Its a generous portion, right in line with what you’d pay for fro-​yo, but unlike anything else I’ve tried’.
I tried the ‘Tuxedo’, which is a fine blend of chocolate, strawberries and marshmallows with some slivered almonds on the side.
A small size will work just fine as it’s not overly sweet, yet manages to be refreshing at the very same time. Took it’s time to melt as well so there’s minimal chance of a brain freeze. The staff is very attentive and obviously eager to make a terrific first impression — all good!