Category: Cafes, Bakeries, Ice Cream… (Page 5 of 6)

Note: My complete review of the Golden Tea Garden is now available here.

I’m planning to write a full review of the Golden Tea Garden, a new and fabulous tea house in Hayward. But as the editing of my restaurant reviews is soooooooooooooooo slow, I figured I’d write about it here first.
I went there last Sunday with my friends Charlotte and Vienna and we had the best time. The little place is darling and very relaxing – they have harp music & a running fountain. The food (mostly sweets) was delicious and moderately priced and the service was out of this world. Indeed, at this point I’d say it’s one of the two best tea houses in the Bay Area (the other one being Lovejoy’s). I am planning to return this weekend with my daughter (they don’t have teas for children, but Mika likes fruit teas) – and then in May with another group of friends.
Golden Tea Garden
22630 Main Street,
Hayward, CA
(510) 538-4832
Tea Houses Reviews

I’ve driven by Coffee Time countless times, but I had never had a reason to stop here. I usually do my coffee-drinking at Zocalo, and I rarely hang out in the Marina area. However, today I went to lunch with my friend Aamani to Zen’s Filipino Cuisine and we wanted to get a coffee, in lieu of dessert, afterwards. So Coffee Time it was.
Coffee Time is a very small coffee shop. Inside there is barely space for a counter, a tiny kitchen and a few knick knacks. The place has character, however, like something you’d find in a beach town. There are three or four tables in a small covered patio outside, right next to the parking lot. It’s a very relaxing place to seat in a sunny afternoon – even when you get to witness a police arrest (they did it very quietly).
I didn’t ask Aamani how her iced coffee was. My peanut butter chocolate drink was mostly air, but it was refreshing enough. Not sure if I’d order it again. But if I lived in the neighborhood, I’d definitely frequent the place.
They serve a variety of sandwiches for lunch, perhaps one day I’ll give them a try.
Coffee Time
2105 Doolittle Dr
San Leandro, CA
(510) 895-5997
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews

My friends Lotty, Regina and Vienna (and occasionally our friend Frank) and I get together monthly for tea. Sometimes we go out and sometimes we do it at our homes. As many places as we try, however, we always end up going back to Lovejoy’s.
There are many reasons for this. One of them is that Lovejoy’s is the most comfortable tea room we’ve found. It looks like your quirky grandmother’s living room, and the place invites you to stay and linger for a long time. Another is that the service is superb, a little bit contrived in that they are super-friendly, but your tea is topped and your requests are quickly fulfilled. But probably the main reason we keep going back to Lovejoy’s is that the food is superb. Their scones are always warm and fresh and just fluffy enough. Their chicken salad sandwiches are even better than mine. And their tea – I always get the English Breakfast – is quite good as well.
Today was not different than usual. We went at 3 and stayed until they closed (must have been around 6), talking and enjoying the food, the ambiance and each other. We’ll probably be back soon.

March 2010 Update
Once again, Vienna, Lotty and I went to Lovejoy’s for tea. Yummm. The tea (English breakfast) was excellent, and the large, warm scones with double Devon cream and strawberry preserves, are out of this world. Indeed, I ordered the cream tea so that I could get two scones 🙂
The tea services are pretty expensive, in particular after you compare them to The Golden Tea Garden in Hayward, my new tea hang out, but the atmosphere is so relaxing, and the scones so good, that it’s definitely worth going there as an occasional treat. Still, given the limitation of their menu, I think the Golden Tea Garden is a better choice for little girls (who love cake), so I probably wouldn’t bother taking Mika there.
Lovejoy’s Tea Room
1351 Church Street
San Francisco CA
P: 415.648.5895
http://www.lovejoystearoom.com/
Original Review

San Leandro, like the rest of the country, is undergoing a heat wave. Unused as we are to high temperatures, our homes are not prepared to take them. In our particular case, our house has no insulation to speak of, and heats up like an oven in summer. It’s hot.
So thanks god for Zocalo, the cafe on Bancroft. Zocalo is already my favorite place to hang out – not just because I can drink an iced mocha while the kids play in their corner, but because I always run into someone I know and often I like too. But in this wave heat, their strong air conditioning is the real draw. I guess one of the advantages of remodeling is putting new equipment, and the A/C works remarkadely well for such a large space.
so if you’re hot and thirsty in San Leandro, head to Zocalo for some cool.

March 2011 Marita’s has closed, its Richmond branch is open at the Hilltop Mall

I’ve written about Marita’s Sweet Potato Pie Co. before, and I’m not sure I have much more to say about it, except that we stopped by the other day for a small Red Velvet Cake loaf ($10) to take as dessert to Desiree’s house, and it was very well received. The cake itself, once again, wasn’t anything special. Indeed, I don’t think it’s a chocolate cake died red, but a plain cake died red, but the cream cheese topping was wonderful.
In addition Marita now has a website, http://www.maritasbakery.com/, where you can check out their offerings. Their website is only half-developed, though, and they clearly based it on standard format. This makes for some funny reading, for example in their mission statement you can read how they’ll strive to give you financing for your purchase and how the owner, John Doe, is a member of a number of Metropolis organizations.
And they do deliver, though they have a $25 minimun order and they charge a $10 delivery fee for all orders under $100. So far they only deliver throughout the East Bay, though they hope to expand (so all of you in San Francisco who are hungering for Red Velvet Cake, may get it soon).
Anyway, it’s a locally own (AFAIK) and small business, and I like that it’s there.

Cafe Sorriso opened about a month ago in the old Lateda location, in front of the downtown Safeway in San Leandro. Lateda was much loved in this community, but it had to close after the owners increased the rent to impossible levels. I’m not sure how the economics will work for Cafe Sorriso – the sad fact is that cafes in San Leandro (save, I imagine, for Starbucks) are not big money makers.
The new Cafe Sorriso looks wonderful. On the outside, it’s benefited from a coat of orange paint that makes it look sunny and friendly. I’m partial to that particular yellow-orange color, so I may be biased here. Inside it looks brand new. The “kitchen”/food preparation area has shrank a bit in size and is now composed of brand new impecable stainless steel surfaces – while a new counter has appeared making an L-shape with the old one, where they feature the day’s pastries and take your order. Back there there is a wall with miniature tea pots and small mugs – I thought they were just for decoration, but apparently that’s what you get if you order tea. I didn’t pay attention to their tea offerings this time, but I certainly will in the future (which reminds me – I have to make reservations for our April and May monthly teas!).
The rest of the restaurant features new paint, a lot of dark wood lintels, a new fake-fireplace (but still nice) and new, stylish furniture. There are a couple of fake-leather (or cheap leather, didn’t look closely) couches with a fake-marble coffee table, and otherwise crowded tables and chairs. But everything looks very nice and comfy. Cafe Sorriso’s space is quite small, so there isn’t an area for children – but they do have a couple of toys and story books in a shelf, as well as a lot of newspapers. The sofa area is large enough that a couple of patient kids can hang out for a little while – but still close enough to the rest of the scene that it took my 4 yo no time at all to make friends with another little girl sitting nearby. Still, I’m not sure of how child friendly this space will be if we have to sit at one of the tables. I’ll report on that later.
The menu features teas and coffees – but alas, I didn’t take the time to look at those. Instead I concentrated in the half-dozen or so ‘smoothie’ offerings (including a mango lassi) and the 3 or 4 shakes (all $3.50, I think). I’m convinced that if independent coffee-makers want to stand up to Starbucks they really need to spruce up their cold drink offerings (does anyone really go to Starbucks for coffee? It’s the frapuccinos that keep them coming!). I didn’t see any Frapuccino-style drinks here (though truth be told, I was feeling hurried by the server) but the smoothies sounded yummy. I settled in a “strawberry vanilla surprise” while Kathy went for a vanilla shake. I don’t know what the “surprise” on my smoothie was, perhaps that it wasn’t really a smoothie – more like a shake with a heavy ice cream base. I saw frozen strawberries and strawberry torrani added, but I don’t know what else. The result was quite good, it reminded me of the shakes at Vo’s, though it wasn’t quite as yummy. Still, some kids at a nearby table who were also savoring it seemed to like it very much and I certainly would order it again. The vanilla shake started good, but it didn’t hold up. It probably had too much ice, for at the end it was thin and tasteless. If you order it you may want to ask for “easy on the ice”.
We were hungry but none of the limited soup or sandwich options sounded appealing (of the latter they have a turkey, a veggie and a ham and cheese, I think, for about $5) so we instead went with a couple of pastries ($2 each). These were dry and not very tasty – unexcusable given that the cafe is just a few feet away from Safeway where they could easily get better quality baked goods.
In all, I’m quite pleased with Cafe Sorriso and I will go again. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to offer WI-FI.
Cafe Sorriso
1501 Washington Ave
San Leandro CA
(510)351-3605
M-Sa 6 am – 7 pm
Su 6 am – 5 pm