A Taste of Home

I love their vanilla icing– on cakes, cookies, especially the apple horns. They’re friendly whenever I stop by. The pastries are great. Also, check for the monthly specials. I’m signed up for the newsletter which keeps me up to date. Best place in Bellmore

Stale, old baked goods being sold. Cookies tasted like they’ve been left out for weeks. Tiramisu was inedible. The store is dirty and cluttered with junk. Unfortunate, because I used to enjoy this bakery years ago.

Just enjoyed a delicious cake from here. Vanilla and chocolate cake with banana and chocolate pudding. Delicious, fresh, moist, not overly sweet. Loved it so much that I am willing to drive out to Long Island just to get the cake made again. Yum!

A friend of mine is in love with this place, so I stop in sometimes. I have never been wowed though. Today I bought some pumpernickel raisin bread and was all stoked to come home and have some with butter. There were not many raisins and the bread didn’t taste very pumpernickel-​y. Oh well. And they gave me a sample of the coconut custard pie which tasted ok, but the whole way home I had an aftertaste in my mouth, like it was artificial sweetener used in it. The lemon meringue pie last time looked lovely, but was way way too sour. I know lemons are sour, but this was crazy sour. My two friends thought so too. Like I said, oh well. Think I will stick to Vincent’s on Merrick Ave across from Pat’s Farms. Smaller and not as cute quaint looking, but much better baked goods.

Slow and bad spirited service, often a newbie doesn’t know what one of the products is that they are selling and is incompetent too. They don’t train their new workers properly, They are Anti-​Semitic when asked about items that are Jewish traditional ones and when requests are made for them, and they make faces or hateful glances at such questions about ingredients and they are Anti-​Gay as I have encountered with my spouse. Three times I tried different pies for special occasions and they were beautiful in the case, but awful to the taste. I would never recommend the pies. The cinnamon raisin bread purchased for my elderly mother was inedible, she said. I had to throw it out! It looked good on the shelf though, homemade, the danishes are usually good, particularly pineapple and chocolate ones, and the very small desserts are tasty, as is the (sp?) Svayadell, an Italian pastry. …The cakes are topped by Waldbaum’s own, where they tasted better and for a much lower price. The lack of good customer service, unfriendliness, slowness, dirtiness and presence of insects (flying onto exposed items and a coffee ring that had insects with wings in a piece according to one of my mother’s aides), plus the overreaction and reluctance when receipts were requested,(Hmm, are they are not reporting income honestly to the IRS), strikes me as a multitude of reasons not to shop there. In addition, the coffee is dishwater weak, each time I’ve tried it,(twice and never again.)
The psychic reading night is a joke. Over-​prriced and «owned» by only one inarticulate, hit or miss, on a fishing expedition reader — who sometimes is right on and too general, or not on at all. I don’t want to malign her, as she has been comforting in times of need, and when I wanted to believe what she said, even if I couldn’t get a clear picture, but recently she went ballistic, which is not professional, when I didn’t get a reading and she ate through the first ten minutes, telling me what I already knew about my good marriage, stalling for time at $ 45 for 20 minutes, so she ate through $ 22.50. I complained and was given my money back and banned from returning. That’s due to the manager/​daughter of the owner who has repeatedly been nasty and hostile when asked for a receipt, and when asked about ingredients, etc…
She lacks people skills and doesn’t get that the customer comes first and made a comment I accidentally caught on my recorder, about «what you said about Jews.» She has been repeatedly and without warrant, hostile, and I think due to my being Jewish and being gay and coming in with my spouse on this last occasion. Another patron indicated Anti-​Gay bias by a bakery rep. It is a fiercely Italian and German biased place with this rude owner/​manager, and doesn’t practice «Customer comes first. There is no business that can stay in business by alienating and discriminating against customers. I give A Taste of Home a failing grade. Buyer Beware.

When you walk into this bakery you don’t get that exciting feeling that bakeries are supposed to give you. There are no sweet smells bad lighting and its very hard to get any staff members attention. I noticed a guy applying for a job there and when he looked around he had this look on his face and came up with some crazy excuse to get out of the interview. The desserts were decent t but there’s something about this bakery that makes me not want to go back.

Pulled Pork for lunch.
I was surprised and delighted. It was great.
I went to college down South and learned to appreciate ribs and pulled pork.
My pulled pork sandwich was excellent. The meat was soft and juicy.
I’ll be back for lunch soon.

Monica helped us with our cake tasting. She was a complete gem. Her patience and knowledge made it possible for my future wife and I to get exactly what we dreamed of in terms of a wedding cake. We didn’t know what to expect. It turned out to not only be fun but also educational. Did I mention how good the cake tasted? So good it’s beyond words. We highly recommend A Taste of Home!

We have been using «a taste of home’ as our vendor for our wedding cake and I must say so far they have done a fabulous job!
We met with Monica twice to do our cake tasting and not only is she lovely and extremely friendly, but she has heard all of our crazy ideas and treated them with respect and with an open mind — to me that is SO important! Every time we come here we end up talking with her and the other staff for hours because that is just how nice they are. Monica was telling us stories of other loyal customers who go there time and time again because they love them so much!
For both tastings the cake and fillings were delicious and they even created some new and different fillings for us so that we had some options.
I cant wait to see and try our cake and I know it will be great!

We had an amazing and tasty rehearsal dinner cake from here.
I’m not sure why the other reviewer didn’t enjoy the tasting, but my sisters and I all did. It was very helpful to be guided through the tasting process, and we were never charged a fee. They are a bit unorganized with some things, but the pastries and cakes are delicious. The place is small — definitely meant for take-​out.

Hot Dog! What a cake!
We were throwing a Mickey Mouse Themed party for our son’s 1^st birthday and we were impressed with the design they had for the cake. We were willing to trust them and go with butter cream rather than Fondant for the exterior.
It looked really super smooth and of course tasted much better. The cake and the filling were delicious!

After reading the some bad reviews on Unilocal,my fiancé and I went in with some low expectations. We met Monica, who helped us with the cake tasting. She was very helpful and didn’t try push us to buy the more expensive add ons. The whole experience was fun and not stressful, like the rest of our wedding planning experience. We found the perfect cake!

I have no idea why this place is rated «best» on Long Island. At least most Unilocal reviewers know that this place sucks. My friend I were expecting this place to be the end all of wedding cakes. This couldn’t be FURTHER from the truth. I went there for a cake tasting for my friend’s wedding. Because her fiancé is on a work assignment out of the country I accompanied her. We were expecting this place to be cute and homey. Instead it was dirty and cluttered.
The woman that was assisting us clearly wasn’t organized or ready for us even though we made an appointment. Kept us waiting for 15 minutes while she got herself sorted. THEN came the hard sell speech that literally lasted 20 minutes and was very self absorbed. We care about how the cake tastes/​looks not how you quit you job as an executive assistant or whatever to help your sister run the business because she got the cooking gene and you got the business gene. Really??? Then after falling asleep while listening to her she informs us that there is a $ 25.00 fee to taste the damn cake! We should have walked out right then and there. Then she comes back with all of the different cakes and fillings and frostings and begins to treat us like kindergartners like we don’t know how to put frosting on a cake? WHAT? Finally she leaves us be and we prayed that after all this build up the cake would be FABULOUS, it wasn’t. It tasted like something that came out of an Easy Bake Oven.
When the woman came back to finally ask us what type of cake my friend wanted and see any pictures she had, we wanted to run for the car and peel the tires out of the parking lot. She told my friend that my cake wouldn’t be possible to make exactly like the picture. Especially that it was square. Wedding cakes are supposed to be round. Seriously? Then came the final insult. She left to go get a pen or whatever a cyanide capsule would have been nice, but she came back without the pen to look at my friend and I and ask us if WE were the two getting married, as a same sex marriage and backing it with a «not that it would bother her one way or another but she just wanted to know» kind of statement. Obviously it would bother her because how would that affect the cake? My friend said, and I quote, «If we were, we would be making out and being all lovey dove, don’t you think?» The look of disgust on this woman’s face told me it as if her next words weren’t bad enough, «Oh I don’t need to know about any of that!». This woman is anti gay. CLEARLY. I am boycotting it.
DO.NOT.GO.HERE.EVER.

I have not been inside, but have driven by a few times.
This past Thanksgiving, someone was nice enough to bring their Sugar Free Cookies for dessert. You couldn’t tell the difference. If you’ve ever had a sugar free cookie, you know what I’m talking about. These were not dry, cardboard tasting cookies. They were moist and actually good tasting.
In spite of all the negative reviews, I’m looking forward to stooping in for some more baked goods, maybe even give the café a shot.

Mouth watering selection of freshly baked goodies. I can never walk out with just one item. Their coffee is very good. The décor can definitely use a facelift. Definitely not a sit down place. Just grab n go.

Beware!
My fiancé, who is a baker, applied for a job here a number of months ago. He worked for one day. Things that happened during that day:
–Not a single person besides him washed their hands, ever. He couldn’t even find soap in the kitchen.
–He was told to use his hands to scoop muffin batter into pans and pre-​made pie filling into pies, as scoops or even spoons weren’t available.
–He was given MOLDY PIE DOUGH, and told to use it because «the mold will be killed in the oven» and they «use it when it’s moldy it all the time without issue.»
So, if you want dirty, mold-​covered food made in a dirty kitchen by workers who never wash, this is the place to go.

I’ve heard so many great things about this place. Not really sure why.
It’s a cute little bakery that had added some seating and food service. I came with my wife one weekend morning, and our server took more than 30 minutes to even take our order, and waiting for our food took even longer than that. No one who works there seems to have any idea what is on the menu, or what it costs.
I will say the food is pretty decent, but the waiting and general apathy of the staff killed any enthusiasm I had for that.
Also, annoyingly, our bill was totally different than the prices on the menu, but after all the waiting, i just wanted to leave, so i wasn’t going to make a big deal about the extra 2 dollars on one item, and the fact that another item was a dollar too cheap.
Probably not coming back. Sorry.

I came here on a Saturday morning since my mom had passed by several times and had always wanted to stop in and we are currently boycotting Dortonis in Levittown (see my review). I was expecting this place to be a cute bakery/​café, with a country, old timey feel. What I saw was a cluttered shop that looked more like a dirty bakery with a deli attached to the front with some hints of a «country» theme. It was not posh or quaint or homey or at all a place that you would want to sit and sip on a coffee while snacking on pastries. Ambiance aside, the food that we got was the worst part. I got a cannoli which was so soggy that the shell was actually wet to the touch. There was no crunch at all and the filling was a little crusty. My mom ordered a sfogliatelle which was worse than any pastry I have had ever. It was almost impossible to bite into it, it was that hard. Also, it seemed like it was made with basil either in the pastry or in the cream. I’m not Italian and I’m not super well versed in Italian pastries so I don’t know if this is a thing that is sometimes done, but I know what I like and this was not something that I liked. It was not delicious and it was hard as a rock.
If this is any indication of what the food tastes like at the owner’s home, they should get out of the food service industry.

I buy all of my occasion cakes here and buy one for myself and my husband to eat about once a month. Everyone who has ever been over for one of these cakes has LOVED them! Love the cookies and the breads also!
Only thing I would change would be the cleanliness of the aprons the back staff wears. Dirty aprons make me wonder what it looks like back there. I wish Nassau County restaurant inspections were available online like NYC’s.
Regardless, still have loved every single thing I have eaten from there so far!

After reading the Long Island Press, «Best of Long Island» reviews. I decided that a I should try the top rated bakery/​coffee shop… No one bakery ever gets everything right… One bakery’s bread cannot compare to anothers Italian pastry… or anothers butter cookies etc.
What was good here was the coffee, and I tried a few cookies. which were good. The bakery was large and seemed to be more of a café than traditional bakery. It was enjoyable and the owner was out and friendly.