Boudin Bakery & Cafe

I ordered a ½ Caesar salad and ½ tuna sandwich combo and the portions were larger than I would have expected for a combo. I would have gotten full just off the salad. The cashier was friendly so after walking and taste testing the food court on a weeknight this seemed like one of the better choices for less processed food.

It’s a good place for sourdough lovers. One of the best things on the menu is Clam chowder in the bread bowl.

Garbage in all the meaning of the word. I got the cheese steak and it was absolutely the worst cheese steak I have ever eaten in my life. It has no taste the meat did not taste good and the cheese was over cooked and tasted horrible. Two bites and throw it to the garbage can where boudin belongs. Never ever eating at this horrible franchise again.

If you like sourdough, Boudin is a good choice. They pride themselves on it and so does the entire SF bay area. I’ve also enjoyed buying loaves over the years.
Given all of that, why then do they try and restrict your ability to order this wonderful carb? It was my first time at a Boudin Café ordering a meal and I tried ordering a half sandwich and bowl of soup combo. Unfortunately to my dismay, you can’t order a hot sandwich e.g. grilled cheese, with a bowl of soup. They can make half cold sandwiches, but not half a grilled cheese. How silly is that?
I ended up ordering a full grilled cheese and added a 5 oz cup of chowder. The sandwich was decent, but the soup fell flat; seemed like there was to much roux resulting in a gloppy consistency and a hint of clam flavor but no actual clams.
I’ll stick to bread orders only next time.

Wish I can give this places 5 star’s but customer service was bad… being my frist time the guy at the front expect me to know where everything was on the menu.. I would say where on the menu can I find that. he would say. Right There. standing heind the counter
And all I wanted some damm soup. but over all the food was ok.

Great grilled cheese and ham! Definitely a place to order after (or before) a good shopping!

Great sandwiches and green salads. Tip: always get the salad not chips unless u want the carbs. I care about what I eat and remain healthy in my old age. The sourdough is mouthwatering and so crunchy you have to be careful not to break a tooth. It’s so worth it though. I’d break all my teeth to at here daily. Drooling as I write this!

Decent soup in a decent bread bowl. Not great, but Ok.

Great food, prices are a little high for what you get. I would rate 4 stars but I dropped 1 because of the young girl who helped me today. I didn’t catch her name unfortunately but she wasn’t too pleasant. Maybe she was just having a bad day, but she was rather rude and extremely awkward.

I always need to order catering at the last minute and they always come through for me with fantastic food! It is super fresh. The giant sandwich box with green salad and cookies and brownies are fantastic!

I’ve shopped at valley fair all my life and have had meals every single time I went to valley fair, but I never quite gave this Boudin a chance because I had other options to choose from (Sarku Japan, their teriyaki chicken is amazing). However, today, I chose to have Boudin for lunch because my lunch break is only an hour long and I know Boudin is incredibly fast with getting the meal ready (I’ve had Boudin SF in Cupertino a lot when my friend was still working there at the time and THAT location is absolutely amazing). I did an online order of a soup and salad (requested no croutons) combo, got the clam chowder and the caesar salad. I was in a rush so I just went there, told them my order, grabbed it, and left. When I got back to my work, I took out the to-​go box with the salad inside and it looked weird to me. After a few seconds, I realized what was wrong; they had put croutons. I thought well, since I’m in a rush, go figure, I’ll just pick it out myself since it wasn’t that big deal to me. After doing that, I started eating and finished within minutes. The salad, I’m not going to complain, it was good.
When I started on the clam chowder, however, that’s when things started going downhill for me. Everything was tasting good (I love clam chowder but it depends on where I get it from) until I started eating on the clams themselves. Have you ever accidentally gotten a tiny bit of sand in your mouth? Yep, that’s what feeling and chewing sensation I had in my mouth from every single clam I ate. I didn’t even finish a third of it before throwing it away. So, I’m giving them three stars for these two reasons: they’re quick and their salad was good. I will never come back here and get food from them again. If I had the time, I’d get food from the Cupertino location instead of this location.

No no no do not spend your money at this location of Boudins. It is terrible. I’ve always loved boudins because I always have it in San Francisco. The sour dough bread is so yummy! HOWEVER this location is so bad. The cashier is so grumpy and miserable. She didn’t say one word to me she just asked me for my name to call out when my food was done. I asked her if the beef chili was good and her facial expression was so still she nodded her head with the straightest face ever it was so awkward.
NOW TO THE FOOD:
No better than their service. The beef chilli was cold. The cheese had not melted even when I mixed it in. I got the chicken pesto and. The bread. :(No the bread. So stale and did no live up to the boudins reputation! :(it was so impossible to eat because every bite was a damn workout. Chicken was dry. The chicken pesto is my favorite thing to get at boudins and this place sure f*cked it up.

No matter what, their chowder can’t beat!

I was shocked to see that OTHER Boudin-​goers had the same problem that I am about to rant about: The excess amount of HAIR IN THE FOOD. I don’t care how good Boudin’s reputation is, if you’re going to slack off on hair nets and ignore the food-​handling etiquette, that’s a 1-​star in my opinion.
I wasn’t really feeling a large meal, so I thought ordering something «healthy» would be a nice alternative, so I went with the goat cheese salad. Not bad, but not great; it was doused in dressing and made the salad too soggy and too sweet.
However…
All hell broke loose when I found not one, but TWO hairs in my salad. That is absolutely TOO putrid and disgusting for words! Is someone dealing with a receding hair line in the back kitchen? Either way, buck-​up and wear a damn hair net! I can guarantee you, Boudin staff, that as «nice» as your hair is, customers don’t want it in their food. Just saying.
My friend was lucky and didn’t have any hairs in her food (clam chowder, which did look kind of good), but still, the fact that other Unilocalers have an issue with hair in their food should be enough to say something about how unsanitary the health practices at this location are. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my food and… Surprise, surprise, ended up getting sick later that evening. Very disappointed.

Oh hellllllllll no. I don’t care how good your clam chowder is, you are getting 1 star for the freaking hair in my soup. GROSSSSSSS!!! And this is exactly why preps and cooks should all be wearing hair nets and gloves at all times. Not 100% guaranteed, but lessens the chance of other human crap in your food. You ruined it for me, I used to love Boudins… not anymore!!! Excuse me while I go puke.
Another Unilocal review on hair found in food? Come on, where’s the county health department!

So disappointed in this location of Boudin.
I came here on Saturday and was soooo hungry. I’ve been to the one in SF and the one in Cupertino, and just suddenly craved it. Also, I freaking love pesto. So I got the Chicken Pesto sandwich with a side of salad.
What the hell: The sourdough bread was a rock. I’ve had their sandwiches before, but this bread did NOT taste freshly baked. Inside, was the thinnest slice of chicken I’ve ever seen. They must flatten out the chicken or something. I was sad about the chicken to pesto to bread ratio. It was like 1: 0.5: 10. Then the salad. The mixed greens had little pink dots and smelled old. Just by looking at it, I knew the salad was not fresh at all.
The only good thing was my cold Sprite.

I loved my first bout with Boudin at the valley fair mall… tried at another location… was disappointed and came to the conclusion that this location was special. But my experience tonight makes me feel the quality is going down here.
I ordered the California veggie on sliced multi grain for my dinner tonight. The bread was cold and mushy as if it had either not been baked properly or been frozen and thawed (aren’t they supposed to bake their bread fresh daily?). Gave me a really bad stomach ache at night.
The sandwich for $ 8 was really small. It seemed to be made from the end slices of a loaf of bread so you can imagine what I’m talking about. It was stuffed very sparsely as well and when you are a vegetarian you want some more veggies in the s’wich at least.
Will I eat there again? Maybe if I run out of other options at the mall and definitely not for a while. One bad experience (at the Cupertino loc) made me wary but this second one seals the deal.
On a side note the woman taking the order was very friendly and nice.

A pretty standard affair. It’s the the red haired step child of their SF location. Not a bad place by any means, but still a bit bland in the long run.
I had a Salmon sandwich and they ended up giving me the wrong bread and the ladies seemed confused and had since I had it to go I didn’t get to see what they gave me right away. They said it was wrong, then right, then wrong, and then right again when they finally gave it to me. Not sure what happened there.
It was pretty dry and really nothing special. Meh.
Better options in the food court here, but if you’re a big fan of the company then give them a shot.

I prefer their salads to sandwiches. The sandwich bread was way too hard to bite on. We ordered the soup of the day, veg chili, it was fine. I liked my Asian chicken salad. It’s nicely located in the valley fair mall so I might stop by again for more salad!

I adore Boudin!
We just happened to be shopping around at the mall when I spotted this locale. So we stopped into this Boudin so the boy could try awesome.
I love their sandwiches! They always fill them with an abundance of fresh and tasty meat and their bread is always soft yet crusty. Boudin was a daily eat of mine when I lived in SF and I really miss them!
The service was a bit slow but I always have a lot of changes to my order so I tend to factor that in. Especially if the sandwich comes out like I wanted it.
Also, PS. They don’t make sandwiches on rolls here, which little tip, if you get them on a roll is twice the size.
All in all not the closest Boudin to me, but definitely a fantastic stop if you’re in the area!