Golden Island Cafe Review

After dinner at Oidon we were a bit hungry for dessert. Since I didn't know about dessert places in San Mateo, we ended at the only place I could recall: an Asian place called the Golden Island Cafe. The decor was pastel and Chinese pop music played on the large flat screen TV. The atmosphere and menu made us think it was Taiwanese Chinese or Hong Kong. The menu ranged from sandwiches to teas to unusual drinks (e.g., hot coke with lemon) to countless desserts, many of which we hadn't heard of (such as dun dan, dun lai, lily nut, snowplough, white fungus) to items one wouldn't expect to be able to order individually (e.g., butter).

When we sat down, we instantly got cups of hot tea. A nice touch.

The three desserts we tried provided a nice balance of flavors, textures, and styles:

• Sweet peanut dumpling. Chewy rice flour balls shaped like eggs and topped with shredded peanuts. Fairly neat but not that appealing. "As Chinese desserts go, this is about average."
• Sago with mixed fruit and watermelon juice. A refreshing mix of nice fresh fruit in juice with tiny tapioca balls (sago). Would be great on a hot day. Some people complained some of juice was frozen (like a sorbet) and was too cold to eat.
• Mango pudding. Okay; as mango puddings go it was sub-par. It does what it does perfectly fine.

Original Announcement

Since this was a spur-of-the-moment post-dinner destination, there was no original announcement.

Comments from Other Attendees

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