Carol L.'s Profile

Candybar is a novel concept, being a late-night spot for drinks, sweets, and board games.  I was disappointed with the macarons, but the flour less chocolate torte was tasty.  I am not the biggest dessert person, so I focused on enjoying my coffee and board games instead.  

Overall, cute and trendy!  With that comes a high price tag though, and parking took literally 40 minutes.  I'd honestly rather hang out at my local boba spot for board games and milk tea instead.  But if you're looking for a chill lounge that's not your usual bar, this might be a good option for you!

Delicious Italian style brick oven pizza.  

As delicious as the pizza was, it doesn't even matter.  PORK CHEEK RAGU.  These are the only three words you need to remember when you come here.  It's amazing.  Have the pizza to share as side dishes, but order enough ragu for everyone, and you won't regret it.

That is all.  Enjoy!

So many ingredients for a great burger here.  Bone marrow.  Over-easy fried egg. Goat cheese.  Braised onions.  Burrata.  Drooling yet?  I was!  Oh yeah, and truffle fries AND sweet potato fries as options!!  I was so torn.

They have a burger called the Unapologetic. Beef, bone marrow, house cured bacon, sliced jalapenos, garlic aioli and american cheese.  I know right?!

I took my team here for our Christmas dinner, and we were surprised at how tiny the place was!  A narrow area by the bar with a few tables, and a small back room that can fit maybe half a dozen tables.  Nonetheless, they were able to accompany our table for 11 people.  The food was great, but there were quite a few mistakes along the way.  One burger was way overcooked for medium rare (but others weren't!), and when it was made again, it was still over done.  Two people also got either the wrong burger or their burger was forgotten.  Then they ran out of sweet potato fries but didn't tell us till after they were given the wrong fries and tried to redo that order.  However, the manager was very helpful, super accommodating, and gave us a LOT of free dessert to make up for it.  

Overall, I liked it here, and would take someone here again despite the mistakes rubbing me the wrong way a little bit.

TLDR:  Amazing gourmet ingredients to put on your burger.

We ate here for dinner because we stayed at the adjoining hotel and had credits to eat here.  We all ordered several appetizers to share and had steaks for our entrees: the flank and the skirt.  The two steak dishes were almost identical, just a different cut of steak.  They did a great job of cooking them medium rare and rare though; not overcooked.  But overall the food was just so-so, and not much to write home about.  the only highlight of my meal was the gingersnap cannoli (see picture).  I don't have a sweet tooth, but oh my those were delicious!

I was debating between two and three stars, but the Yelp description for 2 stars was "Meh. I've experienced better."  Well said.  

TLDR: Come for gingersnap cannoli dessert, otherwise meh.

Now that it is nearby, I finally get to try the famous Ike's.  I expected a crazy long wait due to stories of the Redwood City one, but it was only 50 minutes for us to order and get our sandwiches.  We tried the Menage A Trois and the Foxy Boxy.  The Menage A Trois is great -- saucealicious!  I loooove smothering my food with sauce, from it La Vic's orange sauce to In N Out's spread to The Counter's aioli, so this sandwich was satisfying because the sauces were so delicious.  The Foxy Boxy is a rib eye sandwich, and I'd say Adamson's French Dip is better.  Another part that owes a nod is their dutch crunch bread!  Many places offer dutch crunch, but few places offer great dutch crunch.  The dutch crunch here is quite good; almost as good as Le Boulanger's!  

If you are unsure what to order here get their Menage A Trois, as that seems to be the crowd favorite.Lots of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free sandwich menu items here for those with these special diets.  Looking forward to coming back and trying more of their options.  

TLDR: Great dutch crunch bread. Menage A Trois if you don't know what to get.

Peanut butter mochi!  Freshly made daily, these are delicious, amazing.  You can get the peanut butter creamy, crunchy, or with chocolate chips.  I am normally a creamy peanut butter fan, but nonetheless, I highly recommend the crunchy kind so that you get some texture along with the already smooth and chewy mochi.  I have tried pb mochi at a few other places in the Bay Area and even Hawaii, but Osaka Ya is superior by far.

They also have lots of other fresh mochi varieties:  red bean, white bean, manju, kinako squares, komochi, and more!  Whenever I am anywhere near Sacramento, it is well worth the effort to come here.  If you don't want to drive all the way to Sac, the Japanese market in San Mateo also gets a limited amount delivered to Suruki Supermarket on Fridays for a slightly higher price.

TLDR: Fresh peanut butter-filled mochi made daily!

Any time we pass by Davis for ski trips, I request a stop here for their delicious delicious boba.  I don't normally order pearls in my milk tea anymore, but I make the exception here.  They are white/clear pearls instead of the darker colored ones, presumably soaked in white sugar instead of the usual brown sugar.  This lightens the flavor, and the texture is perfect with a great chewiness to it.  Never soggy nor crunchy.  Their drinks themselves are very delicious too!  Brewed fresh, not just powders.  Don't order "half sweet" though because they'll just dilute it rather than decrease the amount of sugar.  

Sidebar:  before I knew that milk tea is normally made with creamer instead of milk, I asked the kid helping me what kind of milk they used so I could request nonfat milk.  He answered, "We use cream.  There's no fat in cream."  Wow.  If I lived in a world where there as no fat cream, I'd be a very very happy camper.

TLDR: Yummy white pearls instead of brown pearls in your tea.

My favorite milk tea place!  Out of the way for me, but well worth the drive.  Freshly brewed tea, and made to order so you can order your level of sweetness:  Regular, 3/4 sweet, half sweet, 1/4 sweet, or unsweetened.  My staple is green milk tea, half sweet, but all their teas are delicious!  It's hard to stand out as a milk tea place, but Tea Station does it in the quality of their tea.

The food here is just meh and overpriced, but sometimes if your'e sitting there hanging out with people, you want something to munch anyway. That's okay, the tea is amazing; that's all that matters.

TLDR:  Amazing fresh brewed tea.

Heard about this place from Jacq L.  I got the green (Jasmine) milk tea with honey boba.  The green milk tea was good, just the way I like it -- not too florally, not too sweet.  The boba was good too, a nice chew to it, not soggy or hard.

However, as good as it was, I didn't see what all the hype and the long line was about.  Apparently though, a few friends who just went recently LOVE the ice milk tea pudding and honey boba, and that combination takes like caramel flan?!?  They loved it so much they went twice in one So Cal visit.  I must try it next time.  4 stars because the tea and boba were still good, but I wouldn't make an effort to request a special trip here every time I'm in So Cal... we'll see if that changes after I try the iced milk with pudding and honey boba!!

TLDR: Apparently you should get the iced milk with pudding and honey boba.

Famous for the spring rolls, so I had been meaning to try it for a while now.  Met up with some friends here when we were in town, and we ordered a plate of half shrimp cake and half nem nuong spring rolls.  

The nem nuong spring rolls were good, famous at Brodard for their rolled up piece of egg roll wrapper in there.  Other than that though, I was not impressed with the other items we ordered (banh hop, bun thit nuong, and some com dia).

I'd stop in again for some spring rolls, but since the number of restaurants I can eat at are limited whenever I'm visiting, there are plenty of other amazing Vietnamese restaurants that will be much higher on my priority list whenever I'm there.

TLDR: Nem nuong rolls are good here, wasn't impressed with everything else.