CAFE 2BY2 — Restaurant in New York

Came by with my friends 10/11 at 12pm! The interior itself is minimalistic but very beautiful. It’s an environment I would definitely study in. Lots of teens come here once school ends. It gets crowded around 2-3pm and there are limited seats because the cafe itself is a small store. I recommend their matcha drinks and their tiramisus! (I LOVE tiramisu and this lived up to my expectations despite their various intriguing combinations) . My friend got a strawberry matcha; very delicious and rich in flavor in terms of matcha (so far the best matcha!!⭐️) I’ve bought their sesame soybean tiramisu and let me tell you- this is some of the best tiramisu I’ve ever had in NYC! If you love sesame, this is the one! It’s not too sweet but the taste of sesame is there! The texture itself is amazing; soft, fluffy and creamy! I’ve also bought their scrimp lemon pepper pasta and it satistifed my cravings! The pasta is cooked al dental (my style!) and the seasoning is perfect~ there is a hint of acidcity but it helps balances the spice flavorings, I wish I bought two :( My friend got the scrimp with marinara sauce and it also very delicious! It is quite spicy so I liked the scrimp lemon pepper more. Later on, we also bought the oreo tiramisu which is sooo good!! Taste literally like oreos. We also got salted caramel tiramisu; the caramel wasn’t too sweet which I liked but it’s very rich in flavor thanks to the salt. The names and flavors are so unique that I bought another tiramisu to go; a peach lychee tiramisu. It was very refreshing and perfectly sweet! There are lychee toppings on top and they tasted amazing!! ⭐️ Later on, my friend asked if they had water and they did! But on a glass cup! And the waiter gave us another glass to my friend and I (even though we didn’t ask), we appreciated the consideration they had for us! I will definitely come back to the cafe and try out more of the food items that they have to...

Service: I came here with my mom for an afternoon date. Arrived and told just sit wherever there’s table. It’s a QR code menu thru phone so don’t expect any physical menu, and you pay immediately through the website after you ordered. Sat down for like 10mins expecting someone to bring us water but no, I looked at every other table, no water. I had to ask the server to give me water. I feel like water service is the bare minimum you can do in a food service industry, or at least provide a water station for people to get water without asking servers if you’re not planning to provide water. No napkins provided either, unless you ask.

Wait time: We ordered two pasta, an appetizer, two drinks and a slice of cake. We waited close to 20mins for our first pasta to be brought to our table, then another 7-8mins for the second one. Finally our drink came after 5 more minutes. The cafe was crowded but there weren’t a lot of people ordering actual food besides the drinks and cakes so I don’t know why it took them so long to serve us.

Food Quality: I’m going to be honest. The food is very mediocre not worth the price or the quality. The pasta cost $17, appetizer $10, drinks around $6-7 and the tiramisu cake $15 per 3”x3” slice. Don’t get me started with the cake, the cafe is hyped up for the cake but quality is below average for $15 a slice (I am a foodie for sweets so I know what’s good and what’s not). The cake was brought to us 1/4 melted, with dry ladyfingers in the middle. Overall it’s just a dry cake with not much flavoring. Even my mom said it’s not good, because she recently came back from china, having the exact same cake; stating she had it better off of a street vendor for $3 dollars.

Everyone who’s there are there for the gram, so if you are coming here for the gram go for it but for good quality food, save your money and go...

seeing cafe 2by2 all over my instagram feed, i wasn't sure how crowded the cafe would be, so we decided we would go at opening (11:00 AM) on a saturday in december. we showed up a few minutes prior to opening and were very confused that the whole cafe was pitch black. there was no signage as to the shop being closed that day or something happening. we waited a few minutes and watched as others poked their heads at the front as well. eventually, we decided to go grab lunch elsewhere.

we ended up returning about an hour later and the cafe was open. as i ordered, i asked them what time they opened and they said 11. i said oh huh ... i was here at opening but the place was pitch black. they said oh ... well sometimes we get in at 11:15. that was certainly an interesting response for me to hear. i get that things can happen, especially in a city like new york where transportation is certainly less than reliable. however, i hope that was more of a one time occurrence than something that happens frequently.

at the time we arrived, most of the flavors were still unavailable though i think you could ask for it and they'd have to go get it in the back (not entirely sure as we didn't want to make a fuss about it). we ended up getting the taro mochi tiramisu, seeing that there seemed to be a lot of them and presumably is one of the more popular flavors.

the cake was a good level of sweetness and had decent texture (aka not too dry) however, at $13.95 a slice, the price was fairly steep. i would definitely be interested in trying their other flavors (there are so many!) if i were in the area, but i would probably not go out of my way to do so. the space is very cute though we got our slice to-go so didn't get to experience the...