Takahachi Bakery

Cute and delicious Japanese bakery.  My friends and I tried 5 of the desserts: the matcha crepe roll, cassis noir mousse, Kyoto matcha mousse, truffle cake, and strawberry shortcake.  I also got a matcha latte.  Everything was good.

Matcha crepe roll -- filled with a red bean cream with just the right amount of sweetness.  It was a lot of cream, which I normally don't like, but it was light and fluffy and not overwhelming.

Cassis noir mousse -- loved the tartness of the cassis to balance the sweet.  My only nit would be the cake part at the bottom was neither cakey nor crunchy, so I was confused by the texture (flavor was good though).

Kyoto matcha mousse -- good, but not as memorable as the two above.

Truffle cake -- surprisingly good (I've come to expect not-so-good chocolate desserts at Asian bakeries, but this was good).  The cake was dense, but not dry, and the mousse part was also rich, which works for me since I like chocolate (and prefer richer, denser chocolate over airier mousses).

Strawberry shortcake -- pretty good as well.  As is often typical of Asian bakery cakes, the cake was a lighter chiffon cake.  A tad sweet for my liking, but good overall.

  

2nd City

Tasty Filipino fusion food.  Really flavorful comfort food overall, although not everything was perfect.

Cali Burrito -- delicious; the meats (seared pork belly and pulled chicken) were well seasoned and juicy, and the tortilla had a nice pan-fried crisp.  Only negative...where was the avocado?


Flip-n-out Burger -- this definitely reminded me of In-n-Out.  Very simple burger, but it worked well and was delicious.


Sinigang Flip Bowl -- the short rib was great, but I'm pretty sure we didn't have garlic fried rice in our bowl and instead got coconut rice.  Decent bowl, but not that standout.  The ingredients didn't seem to gel together as well as I'd hoped; nothing bad, but ingredients seemed to be very distinct as I was eating it (just felt like rice with some beef and some veggies, as opposed to a special bowl...hard to explain in words).


Tacos -- we got the bi-curious with short rib and fresh catch.  The short rib taco was the same meat as the Sinigang Flip Bowl (yum).  The fish was okay, but there are better fish tacos out there.  The chicharrones topping added a nice crunch.


Ube macapuno ice cream -- ube flavor is good but slightly on the light side, but I really liked the shredded coconut in the ice cream; it was a good combination.  Texture of the ice cream was a little bit on the harder side.


It seems there's a super duper secret menu here too.  I tried asking about some secret menu items I really wanted to try (based on pictures I've seen), but that wasn't good enough as I didn't know the exact names of the dish.  Too bad.

If I figure out some of the secret menu names, I'd definitely be interested in coming back soon to try those.