Pistachio Einspänners and fluffy Japanese soufflé cheesecakes have come to downtown Palo Alto with the expansion of Goodthing Coffee.
The cafe and bakery debuted about a year ago in Burlingame, created by Mountain View residents and married couple Vincent Lan and Shuo Yang. It didn’t take long before Goodthing outgrew its space in Burlingame, Lan said. Yang, a trained pastry chef, was baking from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily because there wasn’t room to do so during service hours.
Goodthing’s new Palo Alto location is about twice the size of its first shop, allowing Goodthing to offer an expanded pastry menu. Located in the former space of Wood Oven Pizza, Goodthing’s new cafe has an open-concept kitchen, a loft with additional seating and an outdoor patio. It soft opened Oct. 28, offering light roast single-origin pour-overs, specialty coffee and tea drinks, cheesecakes, cookies and canelés.
The cafe is known for its pistachio Einspänners ($9), which come in both espresso and matcha varieties (the matcha version is called Urban Angel). Topped with a thick yet pourable sweetened whipped cream, the drink is served with a small wooden spoon to eat it with. Lan recommends eating the cream first, before mixing the remainder into the drink and sipping the rest of it.
Goodthing’s guihua (Chinese for osmanthus) oat latte uses osmanthus syrup to create a floral finish ($8). This syrup also works well with matcha or tonic water, Lan said. In celebration of its one-year anniversary, Goodthing also has a limited edition banana pudding latte ($9), for which homemade banana pudding is added to a latte.
Coffee at Goodthing is primarily roasted in Europe and is exclusively light roast and single-origin. The cafe rotates between using espresso beans from Dak Coffee Roaster in Amsterdam and La Cabra in Copenhagen and offers four to six pour-over options at one time grown in various geographic locations. Currently, it offers beans from Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Panama.
For pastries, cheesecakes come in flavors such as Hokkaido milk, tiramisu and yuzu matcha ($11-$12 per slice) and cookies in varieties including walnut chocolate chip and Dubai chocolate ($6-$7).
Peter Moon, who previously worked at Satura, Maison Alyzée and Croissante, recently joined the baking team at Goodthing Coffee. He befriended Lan after meeting him at the soft opening of Goodthing in Burlingame, holding a pop-up there before joining the team. Moon said Goodthing will soon offer chiffon roll cakes and housemade gelato with Asian-inspired flavors.
Lan said he doesn’t plan to open a third Goodthing cafe, saying he’s “happy with two.”
Goodthing Coffee, 532 Ramona St., Palo Alto; Instagram: @goodthing.coffee. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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looks great!