I originally came here because of an Instagram Reel about Cay Cafe's Mochiko coffee. What I didn't expect was to have an hour and a half conversation about the cafe with the owner! (His name is Long.)
TL;DR: Come here if you want to have a drink and eat food that's made with 100% real ingredients with no preservatives and tastes fresh. This stuff is made by people who care so much that they've traveled directly to their sources so they can control what they're getting.
PHILOSOPHY:
Long and his wife wanted to make sure that people get the best food with the least amount of preservatives and using ONLY WHOLE INGREDIENTS. They've gone DEEP into figuring out how to make the best version of their food without any added chemicals.
DRINK:
The Mochiko Coffee was like a Philz Mint Mojito Coffee but with a Vietnamese spin. The salted cream was exactly as advertised. We added the matcha cream and was very pleasantly surprised that the cream was VERY matcha forward.
DRINK BACKGROUND:
From talking to Long, his family goes to Vietnam to talk to the farmers and SOURCE THE BEANS for their coffee. They are NOT just scooping out some Cafe Du Monde canned coffee!
Similar for their matcha, he travels to Japan to actually meet the matcha producers. He told us that since there's a matcha shortage, he ACTUALLY NEEDS TO SHOW the match producers the final product so they can approve the sale of the matcha.
CRUNCHY PORK BANH MI:
The Crunchy Pork Banh Mi is one of the top 3 banh mi's I've ever had in my life. I'm not a big Yelp reviewer, but I do eat a lot of banh mi's. Most people swear by Duc Huong but Cay Cafe's banh mi is different.
BREAD:
Assuming you eat this sandwich fresh, right as you order it: the bread is freshly toasted so it'll be perfectly crispy on the outside and so soft on the inside that you will think that there isn't much bread. However, what it's doing is actually sucking in the juices and mayonnaise of the sandwich.
BREAD BACKGROUND:
Cay Cafe's bread is made fresh every day and you can tell. Heck, Long's business partner actually went to Paris to learn how to bake their bread! I asked Long if I could buy a banh mi for the following day. He gave me instructions on how to heat it up, but you can tell he hesitated because the bread's best expression is the day it was made. The bread itself has zero preservatives and Long doesn't recommend eating it beyond 1 day old because it just won't be that good. I've never met someone who cares so much about how we eat their bread.
CRUNCHY PORK:
Their Crunchy Pork is amazing. It's not a tough hard skin that you can get at other places. The flavor is just right, it's not super salty, they cut it at the right size for biting. You can feel the crisp skin through every bite and it never goes soft or rubbery, it stays crispy through the whole sandwich.
CRUNCHY PORK BACKGROUND:
Long sources all of their pork belly from a local butcher and when they crisp the skin, they don't artificially induce the crispiness by adding sugar. All of the crispiness comes from how they cook it, which is very much in line with how home cooks would do a crispy pork belly.
CARROTS, DAIKON, VEGGIES
They do an excellent job of pickling. It hits the right balance of fresh, crunchy and not too sweet or sour.
PRICE:
Look y'all, it's a little higher for a banh mi. But personally, I'd rather pay a little more for all the love, care and real food that is coming my way.
DID YOU KNOW? SATELLITE LOCATION:
The Fremont Cay Cafe is their outpost and they truck everything down from their home base at La Ca Bakery and Cafe in Hayward.
If you've read this far, JUST GO, don't sleep on this cafe! It's in the back of the Food Court area in the 99 Ranch! read more