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Our fourth annual Peninsula Restaurant Week is almost here! From April 19-27, celebrate the Peninsula’s restaurant scene with special prix fixe menus and offers at dozens of local eateries. I’m catching up with three restaurateurs participating in Peninsula Restaurant Week. This is the second interview in this year’s series. Last week, I spoke with Bistro Vida owner Ali El Safy about a new cocktail bar he’s opening next door to his Menlo Park restaurant.
For more information on Peninsula Restaurant Week, go to peninsularestaurantweek.com.
Bite into an alien that tastes like pistachio or a bear that tastes like strawberry cream cheese at a small macaron shop bordering downtown Mountain View. Oh Honey Macaron is owned and operated by Cupertino resident Kelly Liu, a self-taught baker with a passion for buttercream-filled macarons.
Since 2022, Oh Honey Macaron has sold a variety of shapes, colors and flavors of macarons, including lemon cheesecake, strawberry truffle, tiramisu, Oreo and even durian. The shop also sells choux pastries in flavors like pistachio, salted cheese, tiramisu and strawberry, as well as cakes like seaweed pork floss and Hokkaido rolls.
But Liu’s shop wasn’t always Oh Honey Macaron. In 2019, she moved into her Mountain View shop with a snow ice business called Oh Honey! Snow Ice. When the pandemic hit, to-go snow ice just wasn’t feasible, so she pivoted her business to Oh Honey Bakery in 2020. Noting that many customers expected bread from a bakery, she decided to change the name to be more explicit in 2022.
For Peninsula Restaurant Week, Oh Honey Macaron is offering a box of four pastries (creme brulee macaron, tiramisu macaron, salted cheese choux and strawberry choux) at a discounted rate of $18.
I met with Liu at her Mountain View macaron shop and discussed how she went from being a nursing student to a business owner and how her macarons differ from the classic French style. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Peninsula Foodist: How did your interest in baking macarons begin?
Kelly Liu: I’m a self-learner, so I didn’t participate in any classes for this. I learned from YouTube, then I saw some Instagram posts where the macarons were very pretty. So I thought, “Maybe I can do it.” I first started with the choux pastry, the cream puffs, but they’re really hard to keep, so they have to be baked everyday. But for the macarons, I can bake and then freeze them, so it doesn’t have to be baked the same day. So that’s why I started with the macarons.
Peninsula Foodist: How are your macarons different from others?
Kelly Liu: They’re doing traditional French macarons mostly, which are thin with a ganache filling. My filling is a buttercream with fresh fruit or a cookie topping.
Peninsula Foodist: How did your interest in baking in general begin?
Kelly Liu: I first had a boba shop in Cupertino (Monster Boba). I sold the business (in 2017), and then I was planning to get this space and then started with this snow ice. At that time, I was thinking that besides snow ice, I can make some pastries. So I started with the choux pastry. That was in 2018. So I started to learn on YouTube and then tried to bake.
Peninsula Foodist: What made you decide to start your own boba concept?
Kelly Liu: When I went to school at Cal State Long Beach, I studied nursing. And during that time, I was working in a Taiwanese cafe, which had boba, snow ice and bento boxes. So I started to have a connection with boba, and I thought I really liked it. And then at that time – that was back in 2013 – in the Bay Area, there weren’t a lot of boba shops, so I thought about bringing a boba shop here.
Peninsula Foodist: What made you decide to close down Monster Boba and open Oh Honey! Snow Ice in Mountain View?
Kelly Liu: A lot of franchises from China or Taiwan came here, like Happy Lemon and Meet Fresh. And then also the rental at that location was so high. So I thought about selling the business and starting from another place.
Peninsula Foodist: What attracted you to Mountain View?
Kelly Liu: (Mountain View) has Google and it has a lot of high-tech companies, so traffic here is good, and I saw they were leasing the whole building which was brand new. I saw the space and I liked it.
Peninsula Foodist: Your macarons come in many flavors and designs. How do you develop these recipes?
Kelly Liu: I watched a lot of posts and videos that come from Asia, including Japan, Korea and China. Red bean and taro are popular there, so I tried to bring all the Asian flavors here. And also we have some flavors like chocolate, creme brulee tiramisu and Oreo. But our macarons are not the (kind with) ganache filling inside; it’s buttercream inside. It’s not very sweet because when we talk about macarons, people think macarons are very sweet and then you have to have it with coffee and they have to be a dessert. But the macarons that I make are not very sweet.
Peninsula Foodist: How early do you have to get up to bake macarons?
Kelly Liu: We open at 10:30 a.m., and then I come here around 7:30 a.m. to prepare everything. Now I have more help, but before I was by myself and I had another helper. So at that time, I had to work about 12 hours to 16 hours a day, but then I took two days off. At that time, Monday and Tuesday I closed my shop. But right now I open from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily.
Peninsula Foodist: What are some of the bestselling menu items that you have?
Kelly Liu: Creme brulee (macaron) is the most popular, and then Oreo because a lot of kids like it. Some of the macarons have fresh fruits (like) strawberries and grapes.
Peninsula Foodist: What do you see as the future of Oh Honey Macaron?
Kelly Liu: I want the macarons to go into a supermarket instead of just selling at the retail shop.
Oh Honey Macaron, 1030 Castro St., Suite A, Mountain View; 650-963-9224, Instagram: @ohhoneymtv. Open 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.