Ki Tea House Café

Funnily enough, this is right next door to Camellia Tea & Coffee. It's smaller, has cheaper cakes, and none of the off-putting posted-clearly admonitions. In fact, their sidewalk sign encourages "study and socialize", and they have extension cords to ensure easy access for laptops, which were plentiful when we dropped in right after checking out Camellia Tea & Coffee.

TIP: They even claim to be "pet friendly"!

Price for portion on cakes is very good, even better than Camellia Tea & Coffee, which is already better than Breka Bakery -- $3.25 for a decently sized wedge of gluten-free chocolate ganache that was not very dense but pretty tasty. In a restaurant it would probably have been around $8 dollars.
Selection in the small fridge counter is small but includes beautiful cakes, interesting items (like their one-bite "Elegant Baskets"), fresh fruit, and a selection of drinks. For a tight space they've made good use of it to try to present a little something for everyone.
Go now in case prices start to creep up a few months after opening.

Ambiance is very nice with interesting decor of toys. A manga library (which I am assuming is free since I didn't see any pricing) is available -- compared to some downtown manga libraries that charge by time, a Japanese / Korean staple. Communal tables of generous width help students camp out to study. Even so, we didn't have any trouble getting seating, nor was there any sort of line-up per se on the late Saturday afternoon we dropped in.

Order-at-the-counter service. Loyalty punch card for each item ordered. Some kind of discount for showing them a Facebook "like" (which I totally forgot to use).

Counter staff friendly enough. Nice ambiance + great prices and tasty food add up to high marks. They'd score higher if they had a greater selection of cakes.

Comments

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en...

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin...

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Search This Blog