Gadani Café, a cozy and quaint cafe, was opened in late July this past summer. The founder Maegan, a UC Berkeley graduate, was inspired after helping her parents run a restaurant and wanting to create her own brand. So, she opened a cafe in the place she felt most at home—Berkeley.
The café's mission is to introduce egg waffles, a common street food in Hong Kong, to Berkeley and provide a comfort for students who grew up eating this. "Gadani" is the Cantonese pronunciation of "egg waffle" with a European twist, which the founder added to showcase a high-end effect to this casual street food. Gadani Café hopes to offer customers a new taste for some, and for others, a taste that reminds them of home. Many Chinese customers say they are transported back to their childhoods when they indulge this sweet dessert.
Menu
The menu has a range of interesting ice cream flavors, such as Blueberry and Lychee. The authentic egg waffle cones are Gadani Cafe's specialty. Your teeth will immediately sink into the soft and chewy texture of the waffles and it is complemented perfectly with sweet ice cream. Unlike Western waffles that have square pits and ridges, these have small puffs that look like giant bubble wrap. You can pull these waffles apart with your hands or directly bite to enjoy. Maegan takes great pride in the authenticity of her waffles, as her cousin directly learned and carried the recipe here from Hong Kong!
While the store currently uses store-bought ice cream, the staff is experimenting with handmade ice cream and will soon come out with new flavors. Toppings like dried rose petals and Oreo crumbs add a perfect crunch. Drizzles, another option, give the special dessert the perfect balance of sweet and salty.
The tea drinks and lattes are just the right mixture of bitterness and sweetness. Maegan creates her own mixtures, such as Jasmine Green Tea and the Lavender Latte. The floral scent in the drinks is strong because the café uses real, high quality flowers, so it doesn't taste artificial and the actual tea flavor stands out. The tea and floral infusion also gives a new, refreshing flavor to your taste buds. If you are looking for a study aid, try Gadani's teas and lattes.
Even a little after two months into opening the cafe, Maegan can't believe this aesthetic and cozy cafe is her own. After graduation and months of trials and difficulties, she finally opened Gadani Cafe and it was one of the best moments of her life. "It's still hard to imagine," she says, pausing briefly in realization.
Given its rising popularity since opening, Gadani hopes to open two more stores in the Bay Area in the near future. When she does open new locations, Maegan wants each cafe to have a different theme to keep things interesting.
Gadani Café combines common Hong Kong street food with America's typical ice cream and coffee shop. Stop by to try one of Maegan's original drinks or interesting desserts!