One Bite Cafe - Lake Forest Park — Restaurant in Lake Forest Park

What we ordered:

Honeydew milk tea w/pearl tapioca Taro milkshake w/pearl tapioca Taro cake Lemon Marionberry cake (GF)

This place is super cute with lots of seating, definitely a place where friends can go to hang out and have a light lunch. I loved the atmosphere, the merch was low key kinda cute, and the staff was friendly. My partner and I were new to the place and stood around for about 5ish minutes looking at the pastry case and taking it all in. Once we had an idea of what we wanted we were kinda confused on how to order. For a good moment or so there was no one behind the counter so we kinda just stood there waiting. It wasn’t tell another couple that came in that we caught wind that there was a self serve, order off the touch pad kind of deal. Once we saw how the other couple ordered, it was obvious that that’s how most of the ordering went. About halfway through our order, a young man appeared from one of the various doors and got to making the other couples drinks. He was very sweet and helpful with us being new customers. The milk tea and milkshake were absolutely delicious. I was a little disappointed on pearl tapioca being the only tapioca to choose from, but hey, maybe they just ran out of the regular tapioca. It wasn’t a deal breaker. I went with 25% sweetness and I am so glad I did. It was perfectly sweet with the melon and milk tea coming through in flavor. I can’t imagine how sweet it would have been if I got the default way of how it’s supposed to be made at 75% sweet. My partner got the Taro Milkshake at 50% sweetness and that was lovely as well. I think the milkshakes do need a little more sweetness so again the 50% was perfect. The Taro was Taroing and it was perfectly blended and had zero ice chunkyness. A nice, smooth blend.

Now, the baked goods…not so great. The taro cake slice I got was very spongy, flavorless, and did not give a good mouthfeel vide. I could barely taste the taro in the “frosting” and tbh it just left me sad. I understand what they were going for in the terms of the fluffy like texture that a sponge cake has, but it didn’t give what it was giving when I was looking at it in that pastry case. Now the lemon Marionberry gluten free cake was a dumpster fire of a disaster. I’ve had a good deal of GF cakes, pies, cookies, etc. but good lord was this the worst GF cake I’ve ever tried. The frosting was like this “Safeway” like texture and had this powdered sugar taste to it. The frosting I could have dealt with but the “cake” itself…oof. It was like if you made a cake, left it to cool down after baking and just forgot about it in the microwave for a couple of days uncovered on a rack, realized you totally forgot you had a cake, go to check on it and it is this oxygenated, stale-ish, crumbly mess that you couldn’t bring yourself to waste so you throw on some cheap frosting and called it a day. Definitely will not be getting that again.

HOWEVER…there are a ton of other pastry options that looked super yummy so I can’t justify me never trying more of the pastries they offered just because I didn’t like 2 of the many, many more options in that case. I will definitely be going back to try the other sweet and savory items that they had to choose from. I just won’t be picking any of the GF items or that taro cake next time.

The drinks are well worth many...

Asked for Popping Boba at first and they completely mess up my order and I asked for them to remake it and they simply just gave me popping Boba with the messed up drink and when I asked for a refund they insulted me and told me to take my business ssomewhere else. I would not waste my money here ever again and for anyone wanting to try it, dont waste your money, they dont take responsibility for their mistakes and will scream at their customers in front of everyone. they will blame their mistakes on their "kiosk" up front on their ordering, nothing is updated or says that anything is out of stock so when I got my order I got jellies instead of popping Boba and the jellies were hard and bland. please dont waste your money here. their kitchen looks like they can't pass the health codes. honestly I would recommend going to the juice bar next door, they're cleaner and friendlier. I hope to see this place close down soon. :) coming from an honest review. I'd also like to mention they wanted to take my drink, and open the top to put Boba inside when I clearly said I do not like jellie. when I asked for a new drink or a refund she said she can remake my drink, than comes out 5 minutes later saying she cannot remake my drink. let's just make it clear, if you have a business and your consumer is not pleased with what the got, and they paid 12$ for a drink they were not pleased with, wouldn't you think of remaking the drink instead of causing a whole thing, and lose more customers. we never escalated anything until nobody would remake or give us a refund when there has been less than two sips out...

I honestly just can't talk about this place enough. I've been going to the Roosevelt location for a little over two years now and getting a new location next to my house felt like winning the lottery.

I love the family that runs this place, they do their best to make every visit feel like a cozy experience and have offered me tons of suggestions over time on what to try.

The cakes are so soft and they recently started getting tiramisu which is SO good, the perfect mix of coffee and cream!

If you're new, I definitely suggest trying the croffles. They're not like an ordinary waffle, the texture is a bit flaky and chewy and the texture itself is a very addicting treat.

The brown sugar milk tea has GOOD boba that actually tastes like brown sugar and not just tapioca dipped in milk. I really enjoy the dalgona coffee as well when I prefer a bit of a crunchy dessert on my coffee. My significant other is not a coffee person but loves the fruity teas they offer.

The cakes are an Asian style dessert so they will be less heavy than your typical American dessert -- which is what I prefer. I don't feel gross after eating a big slice of cake here. They use a sort of airy whipped cream for all their cakes and croffles and it's light and perfect for eating with coffee or milk tea.

In winter, you can request the grapefruit tea hot and it's the perfect cold weather beverage to warm your insides.

Anyways, I eat way too much here and I would love for everyone to support my favorite cafe so it can continue to exist next to...