Badolina Bakery & Cafe — Restaurant in Houston

My rating is based on the service, not the food, which we never got to taste. We hadn't heard of Badolina until some friends gave us a $30 gift card for Christmas (in 2021). Yesterday (10/9), we decided to go try it out. After placing our order, they asked us to swipe our card, and it didn't work. We tried again without success. The person at checkout asked to see our card and tried using it himself. He told us that his screen said "card not activated," or something along those lines. Nothing on the card said anything about activating it so I asked if there was something we needed to do. He didn't know so he called one of his coworkers over. She also didn't know, but then tried the card herself, with the same result.

We were assuming that it's up to the seller of the card to activate it when the card was purchased, so we thought they would do something. We asked if there was anyone else who could help us with this, so the third person working there came over, tried the card and handed it back to us saying "Sorry - it's not active."

It could be that the card is expired, but there was no expiration date printed on the card. The staff seemed unwilling to try to help us, or to take ownership of the problem since (again - my assumption) it's up to them to activate a gift card when they sell it. It could be that some sort of activation was required by us, but there were no instructions on the card. None of the staff had any answers for us about activation or expiration, and none of them were taking any initiative to try to find out...

Badolina is a great bakery offering a wide variety of sweet and savory pastries along with a standard menu of coffee drinks.

The interior is clean and chic, though there is not a lot of seating inside. There's plenty of seating outdoors and it's dog friendly. Ample parking in the nearby Rice Village garage, which is free for 2 hours.

We ordered a shakshuka sambusak, raspberry croissant, hot latte, and cappucino. The shakshuka was incredibly savory and full of flavor. The bread was soft and had that nice slightly pully/doughy texture characteristic of freshly baked bread. Inside, the spinach and feta were delicious and the amount was good. The runny yolk form the egg inside was divine and added a great extra layer of texture and savoriness to the whole thing. Very filling and delicious! The raspberry croissant was light, airy, and crunchy and the raspberry filling tasted incredibly fresh and delicious. The toasted almonds on top added an additional crunch and tasty nutty flavor which complemented the other flavors well. Unlike the pastries, the espresso drinks were not impressive. The espresso in the drinks is quite bitter and doesn't really have any sweet notes or other complexity at all.

Overall, this bakery has some delicious pastries you should try! But you can probably pass on the coffee drinks, especially since the prices here are...

Badolina Bakery & Cafe was located on one of the busy streets in Rice Village. It is elegantly decorated on the outside, and they offer a variety of baked goods and pastries.

I arrived at 4 pm, and the place was still packed with a long line of people out the door. The entire dessert display was also pretty much cleaned out, but there were still a lot of baked foods. I got the almond raspberry croissant, pistachio baklava croissant, vanilla latte, and the brioche cube.

There was no seating when I came so I had to stand and eat the pastries. The almond raspberry croissant was the best out of all of what I ate. It was super crispy and had a raspberry jam in the center. It tasted very fresh and smelt delicious. The pistachio baklava croissant had too much cream oozing out for my liking, making it not as crispy. It was overwhelming and tasted very nutty, of course. The brioche cube was dense and dry, not as crispy as the croissants, and there were very small amounts of dulce de leche in the center. The vanilla latte also tasted bland but paired well with the pastries.

Overall, the aesthetics of the bakery were nice, but the vibes and baked pastries were okay. I will update my review once I try their other desserts before...