Honey Toast Cafe

by Matt Dela Peña

If you're looking to settle a sweet tooth craving and experience one of the more hip, metropolitan-Euro-Asian fusion parts of Portland at the same time, then look no further than in Beaverton, a town just west of downtown.

This past Sunday, I and my friend Alex decided to finally investigate what all the hype was about concerning Honey Toast Cafe. Located on the corner of SW Farmington Rd. and SW Washington St., the building—cunning designed to look like honey toast—is kind of hard to miss. The only problem is parking, which, since this place seems to be so popular, is nearly impossible to acquire.

That said, as soon as we went in, we were seated by a nice host, who coincidentally was also our former high school classmate. Now, I rarely see people I know when I'm out and about, but this day ended up being some sort of mini high school reunion. But that's a totally different story.

At first glance, the place seemed rather small, but a closer observation confirms it. It probably seats around twenty people. Their menu, though nice and simple, lacked the pictures and/or descriptions necessary to describe the rather creative names they gave their servings. Also, their food is kind of expensive.

I ended up ordering a normal-sized Go Bananas ($12) and a mango milk tea ($3.25). Now, I underlined "normal-sized" because I wanna stress a fact. Although this was my first time ever trying honey toast and as much as I am that fat kid in a candy store when it comes to chocolate, this "normal-sized" dessert had by far way too much sugar for one serving. At the same time, I wouldn't recommend the "petite" versions ($7).

... Well, then what do you do? Bring a date and share it!

Hand for comparison. (fail)

So what's inside? Dissecting it revealed a hollowed-out loaf of bread. Inside were blocks of sugar-coated toasted bread, bananas, chocolate ice cream, and four dollops of custard on top—all drizzled in chocolate syrup.

Since I'm pretty sure I'll encounter honey toast again while I'm living in Korea next year, for a first impression, I'd say it was okay. It definitely gets an A+ for presentation, but it doesn't have much of a wow factor in terms of flavor. However, the bubble tea, served in a large glass, was topnotch.

In terms of atmosphere, the place was very chill like most places in downtown Beaverton. And since they know a lot of students from the area like to do their studying in cafes nearby, they stay open pretty late. For now, Honey Toast Cafe is a one of a kind here in Portland and it'll probably be that way for a while. In that sense alone, it's definitely worth checking out. Would I go back? Maybe after I get a girlfriend.