Arome Cafe

I’ve been a regular at Arome Cafe on San Felipe Rd for months, mainly for the banh mi. It’s usually been solid, which makes this experience especially disappointing. I placed an online order at 4:06 PM with a pickup time of 4:21 PM and arrived at 4:22. Two young employees were hanging around and only started my order after I arrived, telling me it would be “5 minutes.” It ended up taking about 15 more minutes. The wait wasn’t the issue, the food was. The meat smelled bad, tasted off, and had a rubbery texture, as if it was undercooked or cooked straight from frozen. I couldn’t eat it. Shortly after, I felt extremely nauseous and spent a long time gagging, feeling like I was on the verge of food poisoning. Thankfully, I felt fine the next morning. Because of this, I can’t see myself ordering the banh mi here again. I’m giving 2 stars only because my previous visits were good, but this was one of the worst restaurant experiences I’ve had in years.

The quality of the food has noticeably declined. My last two orders of the grilled pork sandwich were soggy, with meat that was excessively fatty and had an unpleasant, spongy texture. I am giving two stars because the staff is friendly, but friendliness alone is not enough to make up for declining food quality.

A great place to catch some Vietnamese coffee. It was my first time here and I got the sea salt caramel coffee with boba. Their ambience is cozy and their service was great though there was only one barista. The barista was amazing though as the coffee was scrumptious. It was soothing and refreshing. Perfectly balanced between sweetness of the condensed milk and coffee flavor. After this I want to try more and I’ll be back soon.

The food is superb. Their schnitzel sandwich (and even though my daughter asked them to remove every sauce and cheese from it) is perfect, crunchiness alone, seriously. I got fried chicken salad and add extra avocado and it was very delicious. Everything else we tried was also great, no complaints whatsoever on food. Simply delicious. The drinks were too sweet for my taste, but I understand it's the fashion these days. (I chose the less sweet option, but I don't know if there was a mistake with both drinks that they were regular sweet or the less sweet option was too sweet for us.) My only concern is the ordering. You have to use screens to order and even though the interface is well designed and easy to use, the old person on me wish to have a person to talk to. I'd definitely eat there again and suggest everyone to give a chance.

Enter and order at one of the two touchscreen kiosks. I like this style, but it can be a little slower your first time because there are a lot of items to choose from. And because it's a kiosk, I didn't capture any menu photos. I ordered the croissant sandwich with ham and egg. It took a solid 15 minutes to prepare it, which seemed a little long since I was the only customer. Anyway, when it came out, the first thing I noticed was the sandwich was BIG. Which of course I like. I asked if it was a warm sandwich and he said yes, but it wasn't really warm. In fact, it was bold except for the fried egg. I guess that's alright. Another lesson learned for me is to ask for without the dressing. It's a little too much on the sweet side. For drink I had the classic milk tea and added boba. Pretty good, not the best I've had but good. I say that because the boba weren't all the way soft and I didn't see a location to change the sweetness level. But it's possible I missed it. The restaurant itself is very nicely decorated. They have faux cherry blossom trees and other similar plants. It's nice and bright and very clean. This branch of Aroma Cafe has potential, but just didn't do it for me this visit. I'll give them another try soon.