Citizen Cake

I thought these cakes were pretty expensive, but I have to say the last time I got to try a piece (courtesy of a friend getting another friend 3 slices of cake for a little birthday present). it was pretty damn good. There are a lot of what I call «fake-​out cakes» or desserts– look beautiful, are sad dry disappointments when you eat them, but these slices of cake (some type of chocolate cake with chocolate filling) were really moist (I f@cking hate that word but I had to use it anyway) and tasted pretty great.
I want to try their coconut cake. It looked really good once when I stopped in to look around with a friend, but it seemed a but pricey (something like $ 50 for what looked like a small rectangular cake.) I think I will be trying some by the slice instead.

CLOSED, moving to new location at 2125 Fillmore Street to open mid-​March. In the space formerly occupied by Vivande (that chef lost his taste buds in a car accident and closed), across the street from Peruvian restaurant Fresca. The new menu will be more casual. Main pastry baking operations will move to Orson.
The opera patrons are probably sad to lose this pre/​post theater dining option, but on the other hand there’s more foot traffic at the new location.
The space is small, but in general it’s a nice place for brunch. I love the salads, didn’t care for the cuban sandwich, pizzas were okay. Service was courteous. The large windows lets customers see the outside (a feature missing from the new location), wonderful on sunny days. One of the best desserts I tried a long time ago was a lemon trio, a crème brûlée, a meringue, and a cookie sandwich.

I’ve been wanting to try this place for years, so I finally made my way over there on a recent weekend trip to SF. I gotta admit, hubby and I were a little disappointed. First of all, the place was… well…kinda dirty. We arrived around 9 p.m. on a Saturday night and it was a mess. Even the servers were a mess — disheveled hair, unfriendly, unhelpful. Maybe they’d had a busy night, I dunno. But still, for a place that has attracted national attention I really expected better.
The display cases were practically empty, and the shelves where apparently they display merchandise were dirty and mostly empty. Most of the desserts in the cases did not have labels or prices. We had to ask «what are those?» and «what kind of cookie is that?» and «how much are the cupcakes?» I dunno, seems obvious to me that you’d have your items labelled and priced so people could make educated purchases. But, like I mentioned earlier, the place looked like a hurricane had gone through and this included the display cases.
We ended up getting a few little desserts (there wasn’t much to choose from… although I noticed as we were leaving they were re-​filling the display cases, presumably for the late night crowd?) — the total price was $ 14 so not bad. The food was yummy but just not what I’d expected. Heck, they didn’t even have any sliced cake!

2.5 stars.
The first time I came here, I came with a friend who was from out of town who said the reviews for this place were excellent. We went late at night and I got the midnight (?) cake which was divine. Everything else we ordered was just okay. But at closing time we and another party (the only two parties at the café) received free cupcakes because, I guess, they were going to throw them away? Awesome! We never even ate them, but I appreciated the gesture.
So I go here last night with two other friends and we’re excited to try some of the desserts. Still «meh.» I got their chocolate cupcake with white cream inside (was it called the «usual» or something like that?), and the cake was dry and tasteless, and the frosting was thick and in one piece. My two other friends didn’t even finish their desserts (some cake with coconut and a cookie). Maybe it’s because we got there a little late (maybe 9:00), but don’t bakeries usually have fresh pastries/​desserts all day long? It almost tasted like the cupcake had been out for a couple of days.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be sad if I never went back. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Citizen Cake with your cute little cupcakes
…
Oh, what you do to me…
Well, for starters, thinking about their über delicious Vanilla Cupcake
makes my wiener do this thing where it giggles and punches a hole in the crotch of my pants because he thinks so highly of its not-​too-​strong-​but-​just-​perfect sweetness level, mixed in with the «just right» moist cake batter.
Then there’s the Fruit Tart
with figs, plums, and strawberries. Seriously, using figs makes me think of covering up my privates. Women, note that this Fruit Tart makes me so romantic I want to learn calligraphy and French just so I can write you disgustingly cute love letters that I recite to you while feeding you grapes and chocolate in a champagne bubble bath I made, just for you.
Of course, then I’d then throw you on a kitchen counter and drill you so hard the US wouldn’t need to depend upon foreign oil, but then it would be out of love of cupcakes and you, you see.
Romance… It’s called Citizen Cake.
Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day! ^_^

I had an impressive cupcake today!
It was an apple cupcake with a slightly unappealing pastel green frosting, but I believed in it and I was rewarded. It was like a loose apple bread with lots of sweet cinnamon and nutmeg flavor with real apple bits mixed in. Best of all, it had a nice dollop of caramel in the center. The frosting was light and balanced the cake nicely.
Good job.

I went in here asking about the ice cream sandwiches that I saw in 7×7 and from reading Unilocal and the girl behind the counter looks at me with a nice but suppressed what-​the-​hell-​is-​girl-​talking-​about look. Where ARE they?!
I ended up trying each of the cookie sandwiches they had.
Chocolate — Best of the three. Had some nuts in it but is basically a glorified Oreo.
Gingerbread — Tastes like Thanksgiving.
Lemon — More like Lemon Explosion. Boyfriend loved this one but I could only have a nibble.
I believe the cream filling is essentially the same for all three, perhaps excluding the last one. Texture wise, they look hard but are actually very soft. At $ 1.75 each, I expected a little more.

This month’s dinner club with my friends was at Citizen Cake, a restaurant one of us had eaten at before. I actually didn’t even know many other folks who had eaten here but I definitely enjoyed the experience. When we arrived there was hardly anyone there and they were playing soft music (Bön Iver which I love) but I did feel like we were definitely that «loud group.»
Our waiter was very nice and patient with us as it took us a while to figure out our drink and dinner orders as we were having a good time getting caught up on conversations. A few of us started with the chicory salad which was very tasty. For my main meal I had the chicken which was cooked just right with the outside being crispy and the inside being tender and juicy. For dessert we shared a few items but my favorite was the Chocolate Cabin.
The décor doesn’t blow you away inside but it is definitely nice and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good place in Hayes Valley.

(This review is for the Citizen Cake Cookies only)
I could not say it enough – your boss can either make your life easy or a living hell.
I’ve had a boss who threatened to cut me up in little pieces and have me for breakfast. I am exaggerating, for course, but the way she was going, it could probably have lead to that if personnel did not intervene on my behalf!
On a brighter side, out of all the bosses that I’ve had during my career so far, I only had 2.75 mean ones. (One was a man with huge ego and a short — patience.) LOL!
Thank God for most of my superiors have been intelligent, kind, ethical and fair individuals who have made a huge contribution in my growth as a professional.
And it is a true blessing to have wonderful bosses who are supportive and appreciative. So, I was very surprised when my current bosses came to my office, brought me a box of cookies from Citizen Cake and a nice bottle of Chardonnay, along with kind words of appreciation. I know it was not a $ 50K bonus that I received but after having dealt with horrible bosses, I’ll take the cookies and wine given with kindness over monetary gifts tinged with poison and animosity.
Now that I am a «boss» myself, I’m passing on the legacy of the good ones who served as my mentors by being a good and fair supervisor to my staff.
CITIZEN CAKE COOKIES: (4 Stars)


So, as presents I received «Cookie Sandwiches» from Citizen Cake: GINGER, CHOCOLATE and LEMON-​VANILLA. These are like Elite Oreos but so much better. They were on the sweeter side but I love tooth-​achingly sweet goodies. The cookies are dense with pillowy light cream spread in the middle and perfectly bound the thick cookies together. The Lemon ones are full of lemon flavors – my fave among the batch. The Ginger comes second-​place with a hint of ginger and the Chocolate is chocolatey with grainy bits of cocoa. I could not stop eating them and ate all 3 in one seating!
LUNCH AT CITIZEN CAKE: (1.5 Stars)
I had a sandwich lunch at Citizen Cake before and it was a huge disappointment. The overpriced meat sandwiches were all dry! I vowed to never go back except for the pastries which are yummy although pricey.
Merry Christmas to my bosses who taught me so much and to the ones who also made my life miserable – from you I’ve learned strength and grace under fire. And here I am now… a better person (I hope.)

Wasn’t able to make a reservation through OpenTable, so decided just to walk in at 6:30 before the Symphony (8pm) to try and get a table. We were greeted by the hostess who was very friendly and willing to seat us. I guess OpenTable only has certain time slots open for reservations.
The flat bread sticks are tasty! There are some specks of black sesame and other spices on them.
We ordered the mussels as an appetizer. I think this is great to share amongst 4 people. The mussels are tiny but there are a lot of them, and it gets tiring to pull each one out of its shell after a while. Make sure to dunk the little buggers into the wine sauce. Delicious and a perfect way to start off the meal.
I opted for the chicken with papparadelle for my main dish. It was heartier than it looked upon arrival. The egg noodles didn’t do much for me and the chicken wasn’t spectacular (a little bit dry) but the sauce complemented the meat very well. Also the carrots were amazing.
I enjoyed the scallop that I tried off the scallop entrée. Very moist and flavorful.
A lot of people around us got the porkchop. It is presented gorgeously. I tried a bite. It was also kind of dry and apparently a lot more filling than it looks. I liked it with the apple-​butter. The porkchop seems to be the most popular dish.
Anyways let’s talk about desserts! I was dying to try the After Midnight, which is not on the dessert menu but I spotted it in the bakery earlier. They don’t charge you extra or anything, so I was really happy. Chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache… omg. Best chococake I’ve had in SF. It looks kind of hard on the exterior, but it’s actually just shiny and very soft.
Tokyo poached pears were apparently amazing and very unique tasting. It comes with sorbet or sherbet.
The Chocolate Cabin (warm chocolate cake with pine ice cream) was super rich. I love that it comes with a piece of pine tree… I wonder where they get it from? Haha I think it is way too rich to eat after a full meal, but would be great to share! The pine ice cream is interesting, too.
Oh I also got a macchiato which was delicious and went great with my chocolate dessert! Kept me super alert for the Symphony, which was also fantastic.
Our waiter was really nice and the service was just fine. I was worried after reading all the reviews about the horrible service, but they accommodated to our schedule and were so friendly!
Would definitely come back for desserts and maybe lunch or brunch.

I bought the Retro Tropical Shag and a chocolate cookie sandwich for $ 9.
Yea it was kinda pricey for their sizes. Friends had the smores brownie
, mocha misu petite cake
, and an after midnight petite cake. Everything was pretty good but nothing mind blowing. I wanted to try a cupcake but nothing really looked good to me except the chocolate chip one, maybe next time…

I went for dinner on a special Filipino cuisine night. It was $ 45/​persom for 3 courses that included 2 appetizers, an entrée, pancit and dessert. It was a good amount of food for the price.
I enjoyed my hamachi sashimi and the lumpia were not bad either. The chicken adobo was too salty for me. Eating it with the somewhat bland pancit helped a lot though. Overall, it was pretty tasty. For dessert, I had something with a cookie and banana ice cream. It was very rich so I couldn’t eat much of it but what I had was good.
I’d come back to try lunch or dinner from their regular menu.

Hayes Valley Foodies Outing
Stop six (final stop, whew): Citizen Cake
The night isn’t complete without a piece of mocha misu. It was rich and decadent and ever so delicious. Perfect way to end a perfect evening out!

I realized last night that I make a terrible spy. I giggle a lot and didn’t see anything wrong with wearing sunglasses at 11:00 PM at night and sneaking around peering into windows on unsuspecting patrons dining.
Although my attempts at spying on a girlfriend was epic fail, the desserts here were not. A bottle of wine at dinner meant I needed some coffee to sober up. Mocha for me, latte for her … it’s hard to be graceful when you drink out of a bowl. We shared a lemon bar and a German chocolate cookie — just the right combo of tart and sweet (kind of like us … and we’d both agree that she’s sweet and I’m more tart.) The lemon bar was awesome and makes the stuff out of a box (which isn’t so bad) pale in comparison. The cookie though … wasn’t worth the $ 1.50 — they got nothing on Specialty’s. I’ll be back again to try the cupcakes.

Review of the restaurant:
The menu has a very simple selection and the food is good, but I don’t think it’s worth the price. I had the kurobuta pork belly and Vannerz N had the cream of cauliflower soup. We also ordered sides of polenta. I got a weird vibe from the server since we only ordered appetizers and sides. It was kind of weird how the sides came out 20 mins after our food came out since I was under the impression that we were going to get our food all at once. The drink specials they had were creative though, I had the balsamic strawberry martini, sweet and spicy.

This review is only for the bakery part of Citizen Cake.
My aunt and I went here near the end of our day of eating our way through the city to rest up and, well, eat some more. We ordered a chocolate chip cookie cupcake and a lemon cupcake.
Chocolate chip cookie cupcake: The woman described it as having a brown sugar cake with chocolate chips, and it was delicious, but we didn’t get much of a brown sugar flavor from it… but we DID from the frosting, which, while grainy from undissolved sugar, tasted just like the frosting form of cookie dough. On top was an amazingly fresh mini chocolate chip cookie. Overall, fantastic cupcake, especially if you love cookie dough.
Lemon cupcake: Okay, I’m a person who loves lemon desserts, and usually in my opinion, the more lemony something is, the better. However, this was WAY too much. The cupcake itself is filled with lemon cream, and has lemon frosting on top, with about as much lemon flavor as possible packed into each component. If the filling had been left out, it might not have been too much, or maybe in mini cupcake form it would have been easier to handle, but I only had half a cupcake and it was still more than necessary. So, if you’re obsessed with lemon desserts, hey, maybe you’d like this. But if you doubt even for a second how much you like lemon, steer clear.
On the subject of the cakes… We didn’t have any, but I love that they sell mini individual sized versions of the large cakes so you don’t have to commit to a giant one before knowing if you like the flavor or not.

This review is only for their Signature Chococupcake. It blew my mind.
(
)
Chocolate chiffon cake: moist as ever. Vanilla cream: light and sweet. Chocolate ganache glaze: rich and chocolatey. ‘Citizen’ signature: neat and cute.
Perfect balance of richness, sweetness and moisture. Gimme more! =)

Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the specifics here as much as I would want to since it’s been a while. I came here a couple of years ago for a Dine About Town, and while it’s quite possible that the quality of their food has gotten better, it doesn’t appear that way based on these other reviews.
The food we had was pretty average, and in every literal sense. There was nothing that jumped out as something intriguing and what they did have was fairly standard. The appetizer was forgettable and the flank steak entrée was not all that special. Where they did manage to save themselves was on the desserts. If it weren’t for the dessert we ordered and the company that night, I would be giving them a 2-​star rating instead of a 3.
Wouldn’t come back here for a meal, but would certainly consider dessert and coffee.

Citizen Cake — I’ve been meaning to experience Elizabeth Falkner’s desserts since seeing her in action at the Ghiradelli Chocolate Festival some years ago. I even managed to visit the Citizen Cupcake before making my way to her restaurant. So, I was excited when my friend suggested Citizen Cake for dinner.
They rotate their menus which is something I appreciate, not only because they are using seasonal ingredients but also keeping things exciting should you be a return customer.
We noted the handful of customers as we walked in on a Sunday evening without reservations. When the host asked us if we had reservations and we said no, he looked over his reservations list as if he might be able to squeeze us in somewhere. We were seated immediately nonetheless and bread soon arrived. (The restaurant never completely filled up the entire time we were there.)
My friend ordered some kind of soup that was $ 8. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what it was, but it tasted good!
For entrees, I had a rib roast dish ($ 24) with potatoes underneath and fennel on top. It came with a side dollop of what looked like ice cream but I think was horseradish. It was pretty tasty and I enjoyed it.
My friend has a vegetarian grill ($ 20) that included broccoli rabe, a couple varieties of fungi and polenta. The polenta was quite delicious as well as the sauce that came with it. My friend pushed aside the mushroom mixture which I ended up eating, although I could have passed on the rabe.
We were very excited about the dessert menu, but weren’t exactly excited about the descriptions. The waitress raved about the mincemeat dessert saying I would absolutely love it, blah blah blah. I was very skeptical, but I still got it anyway. «true mincemeat liquid chocolate frozen pear and bilberry» ($ 11) Well, I still didn’t enjoy it. It was too savory for a dessert and I’m not a big fan of dark chocolate. I wish I went for the crème brûlée, petit gateaux, or the cookie plate instead.
My friend ordered the cheesecake, «the cheesecake lightened soymilk frozen macademia Satsuma marmalade.» ($ 12) It wasn’t quite what he expected either and it came with what appeared to be a scoop of cheesecake and a scoop of the frozen macademia stuff.
Overall, we were both disappointed with our desserts and perhaps that was our fault because we came in with high expectations. We did enjoy our dinner entrees though for the most part. A bit pricey for what you get.
$ 100, including tax and tip

Attention all fat kids: Citizen Cake does not have cake! Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but this fat kid is still not pleased.
Lets start with the bread: it’s kinda stale — how can you serve that at a patisserie?! Plus, I hate walnuts and they had walnut bread. The bread was sliced way too thin and I like my bread thick, soft, and chewy… OK I let that one slide, because I’m sort of a bread snob. On to the food. I think my favorite part of the meal was the appetizer, scallop cooked perfectly with a jalepeno avocado sauce. The textures and flavors worked perfectly, but it was tiny. Next, the halibut was tender and the flavors were good, but the rib eye was weak. The worst part now was the dessert because my expectations were so high. Honestly, I only came here because I couldn’t resist going to a restaurant with the word «Cake» in it.
I was utterly unimpressed. Like Neeta said, where are all the cakes? I heard that if you eat dinner there they have a much more extensive dessert menu than the bakery — so Citizen Cake, give me CAKE for goodness sake! I figured most desserts were specials not listed on the menu; but no, this was not the case.
By the time dessert comes around I’m pretty devastated because they have a mere 5 – 6 desserts. I ended up getting the chocolate soufflé with ginger chocolate sauce and yuzu ice cream. I really dont like ginger, but I picked it because it looked alot more appetizing than the cookie plate (e.g. 3 cookies on a plate). Alright, so I devoured every last drop of chocolate, but still I was not pleased. I want a delicate, moist cake topped with fluffy frosting. I want a decadent molten chocolate cake… Is that too much to ask??? I WANT CAKE!
Ok, I’m gonna go make me a cake.