Golden Island Cafe

Came here with my roommate spontaneously because we were craving something sweet! They’re prices have changed for the yummy mango!!! It makes me so sad. I swear it use to be $ 5.95~ and now it’s $ 7! But i did see a waitress bring one out and they have definitely upped the portion on it. But still… Anyway. Thursday @ 11pm. Around 3 tables were open, so customers were still coming and going at the time. First came in and 3 tables still had plates/​dishes from previous customers.
Sat down and ordered. 2 orders of coconut milk sago that’s like $ 3.75. Roomie got the HK milk tea & I got curry fish balls. I was craving actual food and she just wanted an extra drink. So. Lady didn’t offer us tea or water. I know its upon requested but sheesh. I looked around and not many people had a drink! This waitress is one haven’t seen before. Got our food. Curry fish ball was around $ 3.95. I just got it because it was cheap and I wanted to try. It was meh. You pay for what you get really. The curry texture, i can’t explain but refer to the picture that I posted here! Coconut sago is yummy as always. & the HK milk tea tasted watered down. Roomie asked for more condensed milk. Took the lady 15 mins bc she prioritized a group of 6 guys first. I guess they were friends because she would talk across the room for them.
Overall, it’s a good place for a late night snack. Most asian dessert places that i’ve been too basically sells things that you can typically eat/​make at home but choose not to. But i’d rather drive here than to creations since i’m from Daly City.

I finally came here after hearing that the dessert here is fantastic from so many people.
I came here on a weeknight around 6pm since I had an early dinner across the street. At this time, this place is already pretty busy since you wouldnt expect that so many people would be at a desert shop during dinner hours.
I ordered Papaya milk drink and cantaloupe sago. My friend and I shared both of them and we both loved it all.
*Papaya milk drink — Made with fresh papaya and the drink was not overly sweet at all. I was expecting a powdered drink since papaya isn’t in season but I am very impressed with this drink.
*Cantaloupe sago — Cantaloupe juice mixed with crushed ice hidden with sago on the rim of the bowl and four pieces of the actual fruit to top it off. Fresh fruits and super delicious! The sago was soft and the juice was good.
Ambiance– Typical asian dessert shop with hk dramas playing on TV and special items signs taped on the wall that is written on line paper.
Service — Typical asian service. They will only take your order and bring your order to you.
I would definitely come back since this is one of the best asian dessert shops in San Francisco. The fruits are fresh and has a wide selection of different types of dessert. Even though this place is in the city, parking isn’t too difficult to find in Noriega.

This is an amazing place to grab some late-​night snacks with your friends and family. Not only do they close late at night, but they serve some good Chinese desserts and snacks along with it. I have been here a couple of times and it is always crowded no matter what time it is, be it 8pm, 9pm, or even 12am, this place is always packed. Thus, on

A decent Chinese dessert and comfort food café, good for groups, reasonable price. A nice reunion gathering spot. All kinds of traditional Hong King style desert and food: flavorful instant ramen, marinated chicken wings, steamed egg, Chinese sesame dumplings etc drinks include flavored dessert drinks and boba. It’s okay

This is a good place to satisfy your late night sweet tooth. As for their popcorn chicken, they did not have any sweet and sour sauce to compliment it. So if you are in the mood for some delicious popcorn chicken, i’d suggest going to Quickly’s.

Customer service was not their best quality here by the way. We seated ourselves and waited a while to order, get our food, and check out. Parking can be difficult to find here as well.
The restaurant was a little small. I would estimate that the maximum capacity was 20 people.
In regards to their food, I would say it’s average. You get what you pay for. I got the coconut milk with grass jelly (I believe) and it was recently sweet. Not over the top which was a good midnight snack. We also got popcorn chicken. It was nothing special and had to season it with this spicy Japanese powder.
Would I come back here? Yeah I would. The food here is affordable.

Small place and gets full at night. There was only one waitress on the floor managing all the tables and wait list. I feel bad for her. She can’t possibly do everything and it slows down the service.
Had basically 6 desserts, ³⁄₆ tastes like water. As a restaurant, especially one that specializes in desserts, it is unacceptable to serve customers tasteless dishes. Maybe if it was just one dish then okay but half of my orders did not even have any inkling of an flavor.
Had the sampler, sesame paste and dun lai had no flavor. The glutinous dumplings and dun Dan were good tho. Also ordered coconut sago with grass jelly, it was alright. Snow frog cream soup tasted like water.

Ordered the Yummy Mango which was not bad but not worth the price we paid. A small bowl not something that I would pay for again. It came with sorbet, boba, coconut milk, and sago, but there was nothing extremely special about it. Would have been more refreshing for a warmer day though and was overall pretty yummy. I would come back to try other desserts, other sago flavors perhaps, but probably I wouldn’t get the same dessert more than once here.
I wish the place expanded or had a second location. It’s extremely small inside and the tables are small as well. Seems understaffed but service was nice and accommodating overall.
I came one night over summer and there was a huge line, but customers are always very accommodating and considerate when they see groups of people waiting outside. Happened today too when I came in with about 10 people. Pay it forward!

Apparently, EVERYONE comes here except me because I hate driving into the city. The things that you do for friendship. I found myself here on one cold, windy San Francisco evening around 10pm with some friends.
Lucky us, we got instant parking on Noriega AND seated right away by the cashier, so it was super easy to flag the girl down to take our order. It’s on the corner and a somewhat small, but extremely cozy and loud place to be. Lots of specials, but their speciality is sago+ fresh fruit, coconut milk, pudding, it goes on forever.
The menu is long, but pictures do help. There’s a variety of different combinations you get to choose from, as well as hot and cold options. One side is basically all HK desserts and the other is small bites like popcorn chicken, toast, and milk teas and drinks.
From the pictures, apparently the Sago+ Mixed Fruit and Coconut milk is actually blended coconut milk (like shaved ice almost). It was beautifully presented and nothing short of picture perfect. The fruit was super fresh and melon balls surrounds the rim. The sides are strawberries and topped with mango bits. At the bottom holding it all together is an ocean of sago! As cold as it was, it topped off a fantastic dinner.
As long as you’re keeping busy, you don’t really notice how long it takes some desserts to come out. It’s a great place for friends to hang out and their desserts really aren’t half bad. The wait can probably get crazy since the parties that were there, stayed just as long as we did.
They take cash AND card (with it has to be purchases over $ 20). There’s one bathroom inside and it’s pretty clean. They have house macaroons for a pretty decent price (I was too full to try it). They open late for a dessert place and the service isn’t great, but extremely friendly staff. Thanks Jen W and Sherman L for a great find (bookmarked for the future if I EVER decide to drive into the city again).

I came here since I was still in Lincoln HS.
I would say that this place is good, but service is ok i guess.
The price got much more pricey though

This place is so basic ! It’s more like a fast food restaurant /​basic «desserts». I mean I like coming here occasionally when I want something cold or a fast meal but it’s nothing special. Most of the cold dessert sago that I’ve tasted, tasted bland. Not much taste of the coconut milk but more of a watery taste. There are also a lot of chunks of ice in the sago, but the drinks are good. Service can be really slow and wait can be very long on the weekends but on weekdays the wait isn’t that bad.

One star for a decent corner table after a 15 minute wait outside in the cold. Two stars for an assortment of decent Hong Kong style desserts. Three stars for the desserts actually tasting good. Minus one star for poor customer service and lack of hot tea to welcome us, though I don’t blame the fact that there was only one waitress serving the whole café. Minus another star for adding a dollar charge to my dessert without telling me. I did ask the waitress why my sesame dumplings with peanut shavings cost $ 1 more, and it’s because I requested the sesame dumplings, not the plain doughy dumplings without the sesame paste inside. This charge should be made clearer on their menu, or at least made known to be by the waitress.

Golden Island Café used to be the go to spot for Asian desserts. It’s still reasonably popular on a weekend night but the lines and crowds are no longer what they once were. Mainly, I think that there are just so many other options and crazes nowadays (boba, shaved ice, etc.) but if you crave Chinese (HK) desserts, it’s a good standby.
Top choices for me are all the steamed desserts (dun dan, dun lai) which they are sometimes inexplicably not serving and their fresh fruit sago or custard options.
Golden Island Café accepts cash only.

Great Hong Kong Dessert place in Sunset! The store is not too big but we have no problem getting seats there every time. Each dessert is about $ 3.50 to $ 4, reasonable pricing.
Usually I recommend mango dessert at Hong Kong style dessert place, but at Golden Island I think their ‘warm’ desserts are better. The black sesame and red bean dessert are pretty good, and their desserts are usually light and not too sweet. I really like their coconut black glutinous rice dessert, because their black sticky rice is slightly sweet but not too overwhelming, just the rice balance with the coconut milk. I have also tried their ginger egg dessert, but that was quite blend, I could only taste the egg but not the ginger although the egg is quite smooth.
Back to the mango desserts, they do use fresh mango. I tried the mango sago here and it is pretty standard. Just the right amount of sweetness and bits of real mango. However, the base is a little strange, it was almost slushy, with bits of ice. I would try some other mango dessert next time.
In general, their desserts are pretty good but the mango ones are just average. I like the variety, location, and price of Golden Island, so I will definitely come back again!

Horrible service when busy, good desserts.
Waited FOREVER to get our order taken… But once it was placed, the black sesame dumpling and lychee sago came out pretty quickly. I feel like it depends on which waitresses are present. Service overall seemed to pickup when a girl with glasses came in.

3 stars for the desert
0 star for the owner.
Yesterday, it rained so much a homeless person took shelter in the front door of the business next door. This lady took her time from the kitchen making food for her customers just try to kick this homeless person to the street.
Talking about ZERO compassion for other human being. The homeless person is not bothering your customers so let the person be.
The owner went on and call the cops and guess what, the homeless person stayed and doesn’t have to move. Lesson learn lady owner, be compassionate to other human being. You have a great opportunity and having a business, other people simply just want to be out of the rain. I will not come to your place, ever again.

I honestly go here so much with my friend that I’m surprised that we don’t get tired of it. This is just the go to place for those late night snacks or if you’re just craving a small dessert. They have a good range of sago and recommend most of them. The one I usually get is mango sago. I also love their dessert trio which I usually pair with French fries. Which I know is weird but if you get the whole eating McDonald’s ice cream with their fries you’ll get why I like this pair as well. They give hot teas when you ask and water when you ask as well. They use to be cash only but I think now its 20 $ minimum on card. The macarons here are ok they’re a bit overpriced for the size. Overall I love just going here for a dessert after a meal or even a small snack.
— marked down a star because recently came here and waitress didn’t understand what we were ordering. I think she’s new but we waited for our fries that she said we didn’t order but we did… Both of us said we did order them so we both couldn’t have been wrong.
ALSO asked for tea probably 4 times and our waitress kept forgetting… 5^th time asked another waitress and automatically got our tea. WTF???

I am in LOVE with their dessert menu! There are so many different Hong Kong desserts to choose from. Everything from snow frog to black sesame pasts! Plus, they open late!
I ordered the ginger steamed milk. This takes 15 minutes to make which is longer than most of the other menu items. The steamed milk was lightly sweetened and very smooth. I wish the ginger flavor was stronger though.
We also tried the tofu soup with red beans. This was also great! Love the combo!
The tofu soup with black sesame paste was our least favorite. The first few bites were good but then it got too sweet.
The curry fish balls and sweet peanut balls were yummy too! Although, I do wish the curry fish balls have more of a kick to it. Peanut balls are rice balls sprinkled with peanuts, sugar, and coconut bits!
Service wasn’t great but typical of Chinese/​Hong Kong places. If you want water, you have to ask for it!
I wish there was something like this close to me, but I would definitely come back again!

Did you know there is another dark side to the web?
I’m not talking about the kind that Anonymous and the dark internet reside. I’m talking about the stupid kinds of services. You know, the kind that usually comes associated with the names like Joy. Bliss. Divine. Happiness. These are not feelings. These are known as escorts masquerading as a masseuse and while I was busy grappling with the fact that I knew the guy who was parading around with a façade, I never thought the day would come when I would personally find out about his other dark side.
What does a girl do? Go get some sweets. And a lot of it.
A good friend of mine lives in the area so when I am free of all commitments, we usually end up here in order to satisfy a sweet tooth. If a small space full of Asians do not scare you, this is my to-​go spot for late night Hong Kong style desserts.
Everything from sweetened black rice to curds to fruit to sweetened coconut milk then onto the savory items such as chicken wings, fish balls, and all sorts of other small portioned items known as finger foods or appetizers, as known in the Western world. I usually get the mango ice snow dessert which is shaved ice drizzled with condensed milk, sweetened coconut cream, chopped mangoes and mango ice cream.
The neat thing about this service is that you can hold onto the menu and as the evening progresses, if you feel compelled to try something else, order it. I’ve easily spent several hours eating, talking, and hanging out with my good friends.
This is my kind of «Joy» «Bliss» «Divine» and I can tell you I did not have to pay $ 300 for it.

You can’t go wrong with ordering their sampler sets. So amazing!!!
Great for sharing and great for trying a bunch of different things. They were only about 10 bucks each as well… WIN WIN!
I found my new favorite Asian Dessert place in the bay!
This place is tiny, but they are so efficient, and the girl who works here is so sweet and nice.
Came here late Sunday night, and they were still packed! That’s a good sign of how awesome this place is!

Whenever I’m craving mango sago, this is the place I go to! I love this place! :) The portions are great for the sago and they open til late! Service depends on the day but is usually okay. Parking isn’t so bad here either.

NOTE: Venue is CASH only.
A good place to hang late into the night if you’re looking for a chill atmosphere after hours. A pretty popular spot among young adults or for people just looking for some yummy dessert! This place does Hong Kong style desserts with a lot of it involving fruits, coconut milk, sago and tapioca.
I ordered the coconut milk with sago & grass jelly and it was light and refreshing! It’s the perfect dessert if you’re looking for something sweet but not too filling/​heavy. You have the choice to have it as a warm or cool dessert depending on what you’re craving. The serving is the perfect size for an individual and pricing is reasonable as well.

We were blown away by the quality of the HK-​style desserts here! We had a very late lunch and stopped by here on the way back to our car. Maybe its because we don’t come to San Fran all that often, or maybe its been a while since we’ve had really good soupy desserts! This place reminds me of Hong Kong’s Hang Fa Lau chain, one of our favorites.
The wife and I ordered three desserts to share with others, and each one got better and better:
I started with the cold coconut, sago, and boba pearls, which is similar to bubble tea eaten with a spoon. The coconut flavor was really strong and the sago is a perfect platform. Boba pearls were soft and chewy.
The wife got hot black sesame soup with sesame-​filled dumplings. It looked like black tar but tasted heavenly — smooth and sweet and thats just the soup. Biting into the dumplings and you get another shot of sweet sesame paste! They ground up the black sesame really well into a smooth homogeneous mixture.
The last dessert we got were seven assorted macarons to go — raspberry, pistacio, salted caramel, and chocolate. I got one pistacio and one raspberry. The rest were split between the wife and my sister and bro-​in-​law visiting from Beverly Hills. The judgement was unanimous — probably the best macarons we had! Super fluffy, chilled, and balanced in terms if sweetness. I was skeptical at first since they were taken from a refrigerated box.