Rating: 4/5 Falcons
Located in Saratoga downtown, Kandoo Cafe is a Persian bakery cafe established and runned by Shaf Hamid Farahani, with an extensive menu of a variety of sweet snacks, pastries, drinks and cakes, some flavored with saffron, rosewater, nuts and more aromatic spices. The cafe is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Farahani started baking in 1998 in Tehran, Iran, producing original recipes that blend and cultivate unique flavors by combining Persian and French bakery-sweets.
Other than pastries, which are priced by their weight, the cafe sells Persian ice cream for $7.99, milkshakes for $6, coffee drinks for around $4 and special occasion cakes for weddings, birthdays, baby showers and graduations.
Walking in, we were greeted with a light, sweet scent of pastries, soft piano music and a cozy interior sitting area. The shop was filled with a variety of desserts in each direction, with a cake display section, tables of packaged nuts and tea and bins of seeds and nuts, weighed to order.
We arrived early in the morning, so the cafe wasn’t busy, and we had the whole seating area of comfy chairs and warm lighting to ourselves. While the large variety of pastries and desserts were overwhelming at first, we narrowed our picks down to a few to review.
The pastries and desserts sit behind a glass display class.
Inside, comfy chairs and peaceful music promote a mellow ambiance.
Nuts that the cafe sells sit within ornate containers.
Starting off with three, bite-sized desserts, we chose bamieh, zaban and orange jam cookies.
The bamieh, a sweet, slightly crunchy and golden brown Persian fritter, was coated with a sweet syrup that soaked into the insides. The dough had a nice bite to it and would pair well with tea, as we found it both sweet and floral, with hints of saffron and rosewater.
Next came the zaban, a flakey Persian puff pastry layered with honey. It was one of our favorites, as it held the perfect level of sweetness. The soft puff pastry was buttery and perfectly flakey, with chopped pistachios and sesame seeds on top, adding another depth of nutty flavor.
Like the zaban, the orange jam cookie was soft, buttery and not too sweet. The jam was slightly thick and a little sweet, which would round out a cup of tea with natural orange flavoring.
Moving on to the pastries, we tried the Napoleon, Persian pistachio macaron and chocolate cream puff.
The Napoleon was also one of our favorites, and we found it refreshing and light. The layers of flaky puff pastry were soft and buttery, and, paired with the lightly sweetened and cold whipped cream, made a cloud from heaven straight into our mouths.
The soft, silky whipped cream was also in the Persian pistachio macaron, another light and creamy dessert. In contrast to the crunchy and chewy French macaron, this dessert was a cakey and soft cookie that sandwiched the cream. The chocolate shell and sprinkle of pistachios added a nice crunch, and, because the dessert was a bit sugary for our tastes, it would pair well with coffee.
Lastly, the cream puff had a chocolate shell and a thick, whipped-cream filling. After biting into the cream puff, the filling oozed out. Slightly more runny than the previous desserts, the whipped cream reminded us of a thick heavy cream.
Kandoo has a great variety of pre-made pastries to try, and they also have custom cakes available for special occasions. The pastries were all weighed and priced accordingly, with our total being around $38. If you ever visit Kandoo, we recommend getting more of the pastries and light snacks, as they were refreshing but buttery enough to pair with other drinks.
We rate Kandoo Cafe a 4 out of 5 Falcons.
