Why Somisomi matters.
Somisomi is a Korean-inspired dessert shop where Koreatown's dense culinary culture meets fish-shaped taiyaki, soft serve and the ah-boong format that launched the Los Angeles company's expansion beyond its original neighborhood.
Set along Western Avenue near Wilshire Boulevard and just steps from Wiltern Theatre, the dessert shop occupies Central Koreatown within the commercial concentration surrounding Wilshire and Western, with MacArthur Park lying east beyond the district, Hancock Park beginning north across the residential grid and the Mid-Wilshire corridor extending west toward Museum Row. The compact counter-service room directs attention toward soft-serve machines and taiyaki irons, keeping production visible within a high-turnover dessert format. Fish-shaped waffles supply the principal physical signature, appearing either as filled pastries or as open-mouthed cones supporting spiraled soft serve. Toppings add another layer of texture through combinations including Oreo crumbs and other finishes selected after the ice cream is dispensed. The result is a tightly focused dessert shop whose fish-shaped pastry, vertical soft-serve presentation and Koreatown origin turned a Korean street-food reference into the visual foundation of a growing California brand.
What defines Somisomi.
Somisomi is best known for introducing its Korean-inspired ah-boong dessert in Los Angeles, combining soft serve with the fish-shaped pastry related to Korean bungeo-ppang. The company began in Koreatown in 2016, with Matt Kim identified as its founder, placing its origin inside one of the country's largest concentrations of Korean restaurants and businesses. Two friends developed the concept from a shared interest in ice cream, international flavors and fresh preparation, eventually building the business around taiyaki soft serve. The format joined two distinct dessert traditions within one product: bungeo-ppang supplies the warm fish-shaped pastry form, and soft serve rises from its open mouth in a tall spiral. The company subsequently developed independently operated franchised shops beyond Los Angeles, carrying the concept into a multi-state footprint. Its Los Angeles presence now extends beyond Koreatown to Little Tokyo and the Westside, demonstrating how a dessert first associated with the company's Korean American neighborhood origin developed into a broader regional operation.
Black sesame gives the soft-serve program one of its clearest East Asian flavor signatures, translating toasted seed richness into a cold, creamy preparation with a distinctly nutty finish. Matcha pushes toward tea bitterness, and ube introduces a sweeter profile built around purple yam, allowing the rotating soft-serve selection to move between roasted, vegetal and confectionary flavors. Taiyaki operates separately as a hot pastry, with fillings including custard and Nutella enclosed inside the fish-shaped waffle before cooking. Ah-boong joins the two temperature systems by placing cold soft serve into the warm fish-shaped shell, making crisp exterior, tender pastry and melting ice cream part of the same preparation. The shop further develops that contrast through toppings scattered across the soft-serve spiral, adding crunch without obscuring the principal pairing of waffle and ice cream. Fresh strawberry milk and cold brew floats extend the menu into drinks, preserving the dessert orientation through fruit, dairy, coffee and ice cream. Somisomi's strongest preparations remain those built around temperature and texture, particularly the combination of freshly cooked taiyaki with soft serve that made ah-boong the company's signature form.
How Somisomi fits.
Somisomi works as the anchor for a Koreatown outing connecting a surviving Art Deco theater, a Korean American cultural institution created after the community's rapid postwar growth and a pavilion linking Los Angeles with its sister city of Seoul.
Begin at Wiltern Theatre, completed in 1931 as the Warner Bros. Western Theatre within the Pellissier Building, a twelve-story Art Deco tower designed by Stiles O. Clements of Morgan, Walls & Clements. The theater's elaborate interior brought decorative plasterwork, murals, tile and metal detailing into a movie palace built at the prominent intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue. Closure and threatened demolition eventually gave way to preservation under developer Wayne Ratkovich and architect Brenda Levin, whose rehabilitation returned the theater to use in 1985 and preserved one of the Wilshire corridor's major surviving Art Deco complexes. Continue to Korean American National Museum, an institution founded in 1991 to preserve and interpret the history of Korean Americans, whose organized immigration to the United States accelerated after the arrival of the first major group of Korean laborers in Hawaii in 1903. The museum developed in Los Angeles as Koreatown became a national center of Korean American commerce and culture, building collections around immigration, community formation and contributions extending across generations. Conclude at Dawooljung, the traditional Korean pavilion completed at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Normandie Avenue in 2006 as a civic gift associated with the relationship between Los Angeles and Seoul. Korean artisans participated in its construction, giving the pavilion tiled roofing, painted woodwork and traditional architectural detailing within the urban center of Koreatown. The progression moves from the Art Deco movie palace that marked Wilshire's early metropolitan ambitions through an institution preserving Korean American migration and community formation and culminates in a traditional pavilion that gives Koreatown's cultural connection with Korea a permanent architectural presence.
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