Cafe Leah — Restaurant in Palisades Park

I was looking for a dessert place on yelp after having my late lunch and found this cafe. Their dessert photos look interesting so I decided to give it a try.

The cafe does not have a parking lot available, but I was able to find street parking across the street from this corner cafe. Please make sure you feed the meter because when I was there, there is always a cop car around. They are quick and drive around the block and do know when your meter is up.

I walked into the cafe and half of the cafe was filled. There are alot of table sittings for its customers. They also have outdoor seatings too. Overall the environment is not bad. This might not be the best cafe if you want to focus on homework/projects because the noise level isn’t low. But this might be a good cafe if you want to find a chill out place with another friend or even a group of friends.

Right now during this Covid timing, there really isn’t much social distancing being enforced. At most would be there is a clear shield at the cashier and that all employees have their masks on.

Food may look interesting but my personal opinion, I don’t think it taste that great. I ordered a milk tea, which I think is a bit too sweet and more milk taste and not much tea taste; a caffe mocha latte for my husband; a chocolate mochi donut, which isnt bad but definitely not fresh enough compare to other mochi donut locations; an ice cream croffle, which I think the portion is kinda small but taste good and was freshly made; and a black sesame matcha bingsoo cup. I don’t think it’s a cafe that I want to return. If I do, it would only for the freshly made croffle and maybe to try the honeydew...

Overall: 부친절해요. 되도록 가지마세요. The bingsu is too sweet and lacking toppings for $23. I got the injeolmi and there is no injeolmi on it, just small pieces of mochi and injeolmi powder sprinkled on the top. Safe to say, the food is not worth the horrible service too.

Im not one to seek out great service but the girls here go out of their way to be rude. If I was the owner or manager, I’d fire them immediately. Specifically one of the Korean girls today on July 4th with the black hair tied up who took my order got visibly mad and went completely mute after asking her questions about the size of bingsu. She made me question if I did something wrong, but literally I was just asking her about sizes.

I went to ask for a spoon and this other Korean girl with glasses was speaking on the phone with her friend AT the register. She completely ignored me as I waited right in front of her for over 2 minutes and gave up on speaking to her. I could understand her conversation and it was not with a customer.

The funny thing is there were 4 girls working today and they all had the same attitude because they just sat there doing nothing while a customer waited there for several minutes. Bullying type of culture and behavior is never okay and it doesn’t take you far.

There are so many other cafes around for bingsoo and Korean desserts and I’m sorry I gave this...

This place means business - Shaved ice business, that is. They offer a wide array of Korean shaved ice, or "bingsoo" and the place is POPPING during these summer days! You can see people packed inside and outside on the outdoor seating. And for a good reason - friendly service, decent interior space, and a killer central location in pal park. It's an excellent cafe to stroll to after a hearty Korean meal.

But upon our recent, my 2nd or 3rd, visit, I made a mistake of ordering injelomi bingsoo. Injeolmi is a traditional Korean rice cake rolled in semi-sweet soy powder and known for its chewy goodness, but in this big bowl of it, we found literally 3 paltry froyo mochi-sized, well, mochis, for decoration, and the rest of it was literally just ice + soy powder. I kept digging wondering I'll find another little chewy morsel, but was thwarted with a blue mouth at the end. It did not even have any red bean paste... when I came the first time (see pic) and ordered a cup version, it did, have red bean paste.

Not sure how they could put this out ... it's literally water & powder. No condensed milk either. Definitely steer clear of injeolmi bingsoo unless this was an...