If you are American, you are probably already very familiar with this brand. However in the UK, this brand is very new – at least it is to me. I have never seen this brand before so was very excited when I saw that they clearly had advertised vegan options. Westfields is a large shopping centre in Shepard’s Bush, London, and is a really nice place to wander around if you are ever visiting. It has a designer section of the mall which includes shops for Tiffany’s & Co, Gucci and the like, but then the rest of the mall is filled with your usual brands of Gap, Next, John Lewis and all other staples of a shopping centre. They also have a number of restaurants and lots of pop up eatery stands, Vole being one of them.
When I visited, I was informed that they had chocolate flavoured soft serve frozen yoghurt. I was told that this stand in particular will always have one vegan option, but the flavour would rotate between chocolate, mango and strawberry. I was a little gutted to not have mango, but chocolate is always a winner.
The amount of toppings to choose from was extensive. They also had everything very clearly labelled as to what was vegan friendly, as well as the various allergies. They had everything from candy to fruit and a wide selection of various topping sauces. There were also a lot of options that you wouldn’t normally see, like boba bubbles, pistachio nuts and crushed biscoff biscuits.
I went for a large cup – although you could choose a cup, waffle cone, sundae or to add frozen yoghurt to bubble waffles – which included 3 toppings. I went with raspberries, mango boba bubbles and melted biscoff sauce. As you can see from the pictures, it was indeed very large and looked so very decadent.
It was delicious. In hindsight, maybe a large was a bit too large. I did finish it but I think I’m done with chocolate ice cream for a few weeks at this point because the chocolate was very rich. It was however also very light so didn’t leave me with any sickly feeling. Biscoff is also a very overpowering flavour, although when mixed with chocolate it really does just taste like a cookie so that’s quite a nice treat. The raspberries were huge and tart, so added a lovely freshness to the chocolate and this flavour combo is also always a winner. I have to admit, as someone who has never had a bubble tea, the boba bubbles were not what I had expected. I don’t know why, but I had sort of expected the bubbles to be gummy, but they actually were like bubbles that burst in my mouth when I ate them. They tasted great, and once again the mango mixed with the chocolate was a great flavour combination. When combined all together, it was indeed a very special treat.
At first, I thought the price of £7 for a large cup and only 3 toppings was a little bit much. Only 3 toppings seemed a bit restrictive, especially when I saw how big the portion of chocolate yoghurt actually was. But I must admit that their serving sizes of the toppings were very generous, and about half way through I realised that anymore than 3 toppings would likely be overkill. As I say, the large portion was probably a bit too much for one person, but for a posh dessert £7 seems somewhat reasonable. I also have only ever seen this brand on sale at this shopping centre, so feel that either it is very new to the UK, or just very limited in stores around the country. So for me, this is not something that I will be having very often as I don’t really live close by. I will likely only visit Westfields shopping centre maybe once or twice a year, and I find that the majority of the pop up eatery places seem to change with the seasons. If you do get the chance however, definitely try this place – there are so many options that there will easily be something for everyone to enjoy.
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