Tokachi Soft Serve Tour
Updated: Oct 7
We already covered our favorite dessert spots — but no trip through Tokachi is complete without chasing down soft serve. Here are 4 spots that left a real impression on us — some are dedicated dessert shops, others double as roadside stations — perfect for grazing your way through the region while you explore.
1.Obihiro — Cranberry
⭐️Must Try：the purple sweet potato soft serve (called yomitan in Japanese — yes, that name comes straight from Okinawa, along with the purple sweet potato itself, even though you're standing in Tokachi). Lavender-colored and gorgeous, one bite gives you a subtle sweet-potato aroma layered with rich, creamy milk. Not overly sweet, and comes in both regular and mini sizes — the regular size only costs 180 yen, which is basically a steal.
Cranberry has several branches around Obihiro, and while you're there, don't skip their sweet potato pie. This isn't your average baked sweet potato — inside, the flesh is blended with sugar, milk, and butter, layered with custard cream. It's an easy pick for the single best souvenir you'll bring home from Tokachi.
2.Obihiro — Tokachi Toteppo Factory
⭐️Must try: the black pepper cheese soft serve. It sounds like an odd combination, but one bite in and it makes perfect sense — the pepper's subtle kick cuts through the richness of the cheese in a way that's genuinely addictive. This is the kind of dish you'll want to tell everyone about.
3.Urahoro — Roadside Station (Michi-no-Eki)
⭐️Must Try：the black soybean (called kuro-senkoku in Japanese) kinako soft serve. Locally grown black soybeans are ground into kinako powder and swirled through Hokkaido milk soft serve — the result has a toasty, roasted-tea kind of depth, without tipping into overly sweet. This is the one flavor you shouldn't skip if you're passing through Urahoro.
While you're enjoying your soft serve, take a walk through the local specialty shop — coffee and snacks made from Urahoro-grown black soybeans, white bean yōkan, and salted salmon sticks (an addictively good snack to pair with a drink).
4.Honbetsu — Kanemori European Cake Studio
⭐️Must Try：the premium cocoa soft serve. One bite and the rich cocoa aroma hits immediately — it comes topped with a cat-shaped chocolate cookie, best dipped straight into the ice cream. Even the cone is a step up: it's a chocolate-chip cookie cone. Somehow, none of it feels heavy by the time you finish.
This is a proper dessert shop, and the chocolate selection inside is genuinely excellent — cakes, cream puffs, madeleines, all beautifully made and perfect for gifting. They also do custom cakes; if you've got something to celebrate, message them on Instagram at least 5 days ahead.
5.Ashoro — JA Ashoro Direct-Sale Shop, Minasai
⭐️Must Try：the strawberry soft serve. Ashoro is known for its strawberries, and the flavor is intensely fruity with none of that artificial aftertaste, and they do have a small size in case you are full of soft serve.
Grab a box of fresh strawberries here to enjoy for the rest of your drive. Sweet, cheap, and dangerously easy to finish before you even leave the parking lot.
Bonus： gelato
6.Nakasatsunai — Tokachi Fromages Main Store
⭐️Must Try：the camembert cheese flavor — the shop's most popular pick, rich yet refreshingly balanced. And here's a fun detail: the little cone perched on top of your gelato isn't actually a cone — it's a tiny spoon.
The shop carries a wide range of cheese products, so if you're into wine or Italian cooking, this stop is not optional.
7.Hiroo — Kikuchi Farm
⭐️Must Try：the Tokachi salt flavor, or the fresh-pressed farm milk. The salt flavor is genuinely unusual — that sweet-salty combo is oddly hard to stop eating.
Beyond gelato, they also sell farm-fresh milk soft serve, pudding, and other dairy treats, along with Hiroo's famous kelp (kombu) products, including seasoned kelp salts.
From cake shops to soft serve, Tokachi's sweet side runs deep. If a dessert-fueled road trip sounds like your kind of travel, check out our 4 Dessert Stops — combine the two guides and turn your visit into a full-on Tokachi sweets tour.
Comments