Bread of Life - Pão da Vida — Restaurant in Newark

We visited this cafe before noon on a Saturday. The indoor booths and tables were all occupied. We decided on take out and ordered everything from behind the glass showcase, not knowing the names or prices of anything. I told the kind waitress it was our first time and she was very patient with us.

What we got: two small sets of 4 assorted brigadeiro, one large box of assorted savory pastries, one large box of assorted cakes, one chocolate covered strawberry and one cup of mousse de maracuja or passion fruit mousse. The damage: about $70. We ordered this array for the sheer curiosity, having skipped breakfast over the excitement of visiting this bakery for the first time.

What we enjoyed: the savory pastries. The deep fried ham and cheese roll. Really salty, but fun to eat. The deep fried battered hot dog, just okay. The esfiha, a triangular pastry of bread covered with sesame seeds and filled with chicken or beef. We tried both. Tasty. Chicken empadinha, a mini pastry filled pie. Also tasty. The chicken filling of both the esfiha and the empadinha were a turmeric yellow with a dried chicken texture. I’ve never seen chicken filling so yellow and paste-like. Intriguing.

Sheet cakes. These unlabeled, unpriced square cut cakes with their toppings, proved all too tempting. The most delicious, would-recommend cake, was the tender crumb banana cake with banana segments and walnuts. The second cake we tried was a custard layer over a yellow cake. The third sheet cake was a two layered condensed milk topping cake with cinnamon dusted on top. Tempting to try, but disappointing. The last two cakes were varying degrees of hard and dry, with the toppings being the only savior for the dryness. Glass of milk or tea please?

Cake texture: I’m not sure if this dry hard cake texture is a cultural preference which I must investigate with more Brazilian bakeries, but as an American, I expect my cakes to be more Betty Crocker like and less cornbread like. So for the future, pass on sheet cakes except for the banana cake.

Mousse. The waitress tried to upsell the chocolate and strawberry mousse to us, as she brought it out and gestured a hand to take it, but we stuck with the passion fruit. Presented in a clear plastic cup and cover; the single item with a price tag and label. Spoon into the layer of fresh passion fruit pulp with seeds over the smooth and perfect balance of creamy and tart mousse. For $4. Worth it. Get more. I only recommend this judging a persons sweet tolerance. This mousse was too sweet for my child who passed it off after one bite to return back to her savory esfiha.

Brigadeiros: Oversized truffles that truly tasted like Indian sweets but without the milk powder. The waitress loved the chocolate brigadeiro with the sprinkles and I could see why. Great flavor. Texture. Sprinkles. My favorite: the funnel shaped peanut brigadeiro, the flavor of the nuts balancing sweetness. Coconut brigadeiro, also great. Coconut flakes. Sweet milk flavor. Dulce de leche brigadeiro: pretty with the piped dulce de leche florette, rolled in crunchy white sugar. We ate the tiniest bite of these B’s. All deemed it too sweet. The chocolate covered strawberry was a cooked strawberry wrapped in a nut and coconut brigadeiro filling.

Okay, maybe we bought too many sweets for one sitting. Too sweet. Too full. Time for a walk. However, we enjoyed this place and look forward...

This is my third time coming to this establishment. My level of disappointment has increased to the point that I feel compelled to not only provide a one star review, but also leave detailed verbatim. Knowing already they take 60min to make a large pizza I had the foresight of calling ahead. Ordering is hard but I got my order in. Got to the place 40min after my call. After waiting with noone to check up on us about drinks, I decided to get up myself order five empanada looking pastries and 5 drinks. I sat down 10mins passed nothing. I had to get up again and ask then another 5 mins and they finally brought over the cans of soda and empanadas . After another 10mins the pizza finally came out, it was good a little undercooked, which is shocking considering it was in the oven for over an hour at this point. Ordered a few pastries that were already made and ready to serve from behind the counter. Somehow this took a further 25mins! The place is not packed or buzzling it just poor communication between the staff and no sense of direction from management. Then it was time to pay for the bill my order was completely messed up charging me for burgers etc., another 15-20min to clear that up. They lastly blamed the waiter for all the delays and charged me gratuity! With a clean conscience I cannot recommend this place to anyone. Terrible terrible service. Be prepared to spend about 2 hours there, just watching the staff walk...

I went for my first time recently and the service was terrible the cashier was rude and the overall care of the staff seemed off. I will say the one serving was great but as for food I ordered coxinhas and the dough was sour. The one I invited to try out the place with me is now experiencing body aches and feeling dizzy after she ate more then half of the sour coxinhas hours after eating it and is still feeling terrible … I on the other hand didn’t eat it and I’m glad I didn’t. It makes me question the care quality of the ingredients. I hate to leave such a bad review but experiences don’t lie… it’s sad because I was so excited about seeing a new cafe/bakery. I wouldn’t go again. I’m back to report to warn anyone who eats here because my sister went to the hospital and was told she had a viral infection I added a photo to show how serious it is and how it’s contracted. This just shows how unsanitary the place is! I’m glad that I’m okay from the first visit unfortunately my guest got sick from a sour coxhina. I can say this she’s in the worst pain and cries from how serious it is…plzzz be carful at any place if you feel something doesn’t taste right or is just sour DO NOT EAT IT. To make things more clear I won’t ever...