Queen Malika

This was my last stop in San Francisco in February before heading to the airport en route back to Philadelphia. Sad day. But my quiet breakfast was great and came out very fast. They have awesome crepes (sweet or savory) and bagel sandwiches, in addition to some other café staples. I enjoyed some fresh squeezed apple juice and sun next to the big windows while I waited for my SideCar driver to pick me up and take me to my next stop at JFK!

I have lived here all this time and for 7 months they have been opened I never knew. So I must get the word out even tho the place is generally packed from what i am told. Owned by one person and run by 5 this place is off the charts when it comes to flavors and hot food. Dim Sum is wicked here, home style fresh and hot to your table with not one bad word to say about anything. They will be closed next month for a re hall so they can sell beer and wine and outside service plus the best part they can make more with their new kitchen. I am down for that ! esp this way i do not have to travel to the AVE nor downtown to get it and its in my own back yard. The place right now is not very posh but comfortable and FRESH hot food that is out of this world. I have not eaten that much Dim sum before but with this here yes I will be bringing many friends!
Thank you for all your kindness and letting us know about your entire menu and whats to come in the future !

Great experience today at Queen Malika! Fresh and hot dim sum in the Castro for cheap. $ 3 a plate is very reasonable for dim sum, especially when you get high quality ingredients. An extra star for stellar service. The woman who greeted us and saw us to our table could not have been nicer. She helped us with our selections and checked on us a couple of times.
Queen Malika is going to be one of my all around favorites in the Castro from now on. I can go there just for a pot of tea or a cup of coffee or I can go for a dessert crêpe or I can go for dim sum.
The secret of this place is the personal touch. Word to the owner; check your roster and note that your winning formula is the woman you had in the kitchen combined with the woman you had in the front of the house this afternoon.

I’m on a bagel and lox kick lately. This review is only for that, not the dim sum.
So, I had bagel and lox here several weeks ago that was perfect in every way.
Wanted to repeat that experience today. Oh we’ll. Today it went like this–
Bagel: toasted and good, perfect amount of cream cheese.
Lox: not very fresh.
Tomatoes: little cut up cubes of not fresh tomatoes. Watery. Sogged everything out.
Presentation: two halves of bagel put together and then cut in half. Many places do this. It is not my preference, and I’m sorry that QM is doing this now too.
Price: less than 6 dollars. Very good deal.
Really I want to give 2.5 stars… halfway between perfect for the one too weeks ago and then today’s not so great one.
Maybe I should give the bagel and lox thing a rest for awhile. Hasn’t been good for me lately… next time I’ll get dim sum.

Awesome dim sum in the Castro!

This place has delicious veggie dumplings and red bean paste buns. But I am not taking the time to post this review because of the delicious food, it is because of the phenomenal service we received today. An art that has long disappeared from restaurants. After ordering four dishes and waiting for what was only a short bit longer than we probably should have, unprovoked the manager (owner?) came out to personally apologize for the wait and fill our drinks. There was a bit of confusion with our order when delivered and the waitress apologized for being new and unsure of which dishes she had delivered. She was sweet and adorable. With in less than a minute the manager returned to make sure we enjoyed our lunch and everything was ok. Cheers to you Queen Malika for offering premium service that is simply impossible to come by these days.
On top of that, the dim sum was fantastic! Highly recommended to anyone looking for a tasty little sun filled lunch.

This place has really good crepes, especially breakfast ones. I even got a nice foamy heart in my morning coffee :). The staff is very friendly, and its a nice place to relax. They also have WiFi if you need to check your email or get other things done. I pretty much use credit cards for everything, so its important to know if a place has a minimum order amount for credit cards. It’s $ 5 minimum for credit cards, which I think is very reasonable.

OMG, OMG, fresh Dim Sum in my neighborhood. and in a casual café setting! The two of us had 7 different items, we left completely stuffed, and the total came to less than $ 40 including tip. Lili (sp?) provided excellent suggestions, and nothing disappointed. My favorite dish was the fried shrimp balls: huge, crispy noodles flying everywhere on the outside and moist tender filling inside. I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of items on the menu — there must have been at least 20 — and had several of my faves including sticky rice and XO noodles. Some of the tastes were different than what I’ve had elsewhere, and I enjoyed the dining experience thoroughly. I’m gonna be back, and back, and back…
Update 2013-​01-​19: I’ve now been back three times, and I continue to be impressed by the quality and freshness of the food, and the neighborhood-​friendly service. The portions are huge: the Shu Mai were size of golf balls, wrapped paper thin, Four or five dishes will fill me and my friend to blessed satiety, all for less than $ 25.

This review is specifically about the dim sum pop-​up they offer on weekends.
Highlights:
* Friendly Service Staff. Everyone was pretty nice but… (see below)
* Dim Sum tasted homemade but… (see below)
Lowlights:
* Dim Sum wasn’t very warm and wasn’t very good. Except for the 1 – 2 dishes that came straight from the back, everything was lukewarm at best. Furthermore, while you could tell that the dimsum was homemade, it was on par with what you can expect from the dim sum place at the airport (commercial fare) but not as warm.
— Har Gow: IMO, the shrimp dumplings in a translucent rice wrapper should be made with actual shrimp and NOT shrimp paste.
— Sui Mai: they had chicken and pork. Avg.
— Leek and Tofu panfried dumplings: this came fresh from the back and was the best prepared of all the dishes. The downside was that it was over salted to give the tofu some kind of flavor.
— Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings): actually flavorful but one problem — no soup inside.
— shrimp on green pepper: shrimp paste was kinda dried out (not juicy) and lukewarm.
— Other fried bits: too greasy (IIRC, this means the oil should be hotter)
— Panfried pork dumplings: also too greasy and minimal flavor.
* Service was spotty. I’m willing to cut them some slack here b/​c of their relatively new management BUT these guys need to shape up here. We didn’t come during a particularly busy time and there seemed to be 3 – 4 folks running around. However, that doesn’t excuse the fact that a) it took forever to get us our drinks (had to ask a few times), b) there was a noticable delay before someone offered us dim sum, and c) they weren’t coordinated enough to deliver the plates, napkins, and utensils BEFORE they gave us the food.
BOTTOM LINE:
They still serve crepes so if you are going to lunch with someone who cannot eat dim sum (even in SF, there’s one in every group of friends — a vegetarian or just plain picky eater) and you absolutely need to get your dumpling on, come here. Otherwise, the chinese place at the top of Diamond Heights serves far better dim sum. While abrupt, Service there is also quite good (you ask, they bring it) and the dimsum there is always hot.

There’s a sign in the window announcing that the restaurant is under new management. If my experience is any guide, pretty soon they’re either going to be under newer management or closed.
When I walked in with two friends on Sunday around 1PM there were two or three tables occupied out of about ten. None of the empty tables had been bused, which in retrospect should have served as a warning. The restaurant was staffed by a middle-​aged man making crepes and a younger man and a still-​younger woman behind the counter. We stood in line for a few minutes, assuming that this was one of those order-​then-​sit-​down places, but the younger guy told us to have a seat at one of the tables. He quickly cleared it and handed us menus, then disappeared. We watched him buzz around for a while like a hummingbird on amphetamines, flitting from table to counter to table to the back room without accomplishing much; the chef continued to make crepes, and the girl did… well, nothing much.
After about ten minutes of this the guy came back and took our orders. We each ordered a crêpe and a coffee beverage. He disappeared and started flitting around again. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen. Twenty. We watched while he tried to deal with a small line of people asking for take-​out, running orders from the counter to other diners (and almost always getting it wrong), and trying to play barista. Throughout this show the chef continued to make crepes, occasionally barking out bad-​tempered commands and comments at the staff, while the girl did… nothing that I could tell.
Finally, about 25 minutes after ordering, our coffee started to arrive, one cup at a time. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the first of our crepes showed up, and of course it wasn’t right. Ten more minutes of disorganized running around eventually produced the right orders, which turned out to be pretty good, which is why I’m giving the place two stars rather than one.
In the end, the chef/​manager gave his staff a disgusted look, left his station to bring us our food, and apologized. The experience was entertaining, in its own way. It was a bit like watching a bad sitcom, with one guy run around like mad without accomplishing anything while another employee did nothing. It’s hard to imagine a place being so disorganized with just three or four tables occupied; out of the ten or fifteen orders that went out while we were waiting, at least half of them were wrong. If they don’t improve they’ll be closed within a month. We were polite and understanding, and tipped reasonably well, but we won’t be back.

Typed in «breakfast sndwich» ( Unilocal gets it wrong alot, as well as this place)
Ordered breakfast sandwich & crêpe
«breakfast» sandwich was a ham sandwich w/​toasted bread.
No drinks or extras $ 18.00

I tried this place today after reading reviews on it last night.
The ambiance was nice — casual, quiet enough, and really friendly.
The owner (?) was really friendly, as was the cashier.
Great service, delicious food with a good number of choices, and an overall nice place to have a meal! :)

Nice café! Great location, amazing and conversational staff, but the coffee lacks spunk. I asked for a simple latte — yes, I admit, you can’t screw this one up, so it tastes alright even if you did it halfheartedly. Either way, the prices are cheap, the location has room to sit and relax… so, I’ll still go back. It’s not my favorite, but still, in such a good location — why not?
P. S. Credit cards 5.00 and above, only. Strict about that!

I stopped by this place to study. I’m actually writing this review in the café right now (study break).
It took a while for me to find the café, but I think it’s because I have a bad sense of direction. It’s only a few blocks away from the Castro muni station. It’s located in a nice little neighborhood.
I was greeted right away by the employees here. They’re very nice if not a little awkward. They seem hardworking and they do what they can for their customers as far as I can tell.
They have a pretty big menu. I chose to get a P. crêpe (nutella, bananas, almond powder, whipped cream) and an iced mocha. It took a few minutes to get to me but that’s because there are only two guys working right now and they make everything to order. The quality of the crêpe and the mocha I got were good so I appreciate this.
The crêpe isn’t exactly the crispy type that I favor, but I actually like it as it is anyway. It’s not totally soft and floppy. They put a lot of fillings in there too so I approve. The mocha was good to. I wouldn’t say the best mocha I’ve ever had but I can’t complain about it.
There are a lot of tables and there are a few outlets for you to use. I’d say that it’s study friendly (many tables/​seats, free wifi, a good amount of outlets to use, chill atmosphere).
I wouldn’t mind coming back here to study.

Neighborhood gem!
Queen Malika’s is the perfect little café for a lazy weekend brunch. Since it’s located in a residential area a few blocks west of Castro on 18^th street, it’s not super crowded and over-​run like the popular brunch places in the city. I was immediately impressed by the large glass of fresh squeezed orange juice — perfectly sweet and refreshing. My husband and I shared the mushroom, egg, and cheese for our savory crêpe and indulged in the Nutella and banana for our sweet crêpe. Both were great and we were fighting for the last bite.

Queen Malika is a wonderful little neighborhoody type place I adore. It’s off the beaten Castro path, but worth the extra few blocks trek. I dated a woman who lived across the street (otherwise I may have never come across this place).
I drink decaf (I know, snore fest) and QM brews up some great tasting coffee, including its decaf. I have tried several crepes and they have all been good, but I prefer the simple butter, sugar, lemon crêpe with a hot coffee. Mmmm. They do pastries, soups, and salads as well. But the money is on the French-​style crepes! Next to Ti Couz, they are my favorite crepes around.
Other bonus points are given for free wifi, outdoor tables, accepting credit cards and not judging «people» when they stumble in wearing the walk of shame outfit…

Wow people– $ 4.25-$ 7.25 for a crêpe and you think that’s expensive? This isn’t McDonalds! Sometimes I’m so surprised at what food prices San Franciscans call expensive! I mean, the ingredients have to be paid for, the utilities, rent in upper Castro, insurance, and so many other things, not to mention the guy needs to make a profit! The crepes are good, not as good as Ti Couz, not gross and chewy hippy crepes like at Crepevine and Squat n’ Gobble. Wherever they get their pastries from– they’re good. Hard to find a chocolate croissant and a good tasting one in the Castro. Service– the guy who owns the place works there, and is super friendly. Atmosphere– super casual, very mom and pop like– not furniture I would buy but in this economy it’s nice to see a place in the Castro that didn’t cut down on the quality of the ingredients so they can have a hip décor.

I really like the banana nutella crêpe, I tried one of the savory crepes with turkey and cheese and I didn’t like it, so personally I just stick to the sweet crepes. They will easily make you a customized sandwich which is really nice! and yummy!
I live near so I come here whenever the crave for a delicious crêpe fills my heart: P
I would definitely recommend this place!

3.5 stars. Had breakfast here a few months ago and still remember the vanilla latte. It was really good.
Had one of the crepes with chicken in it. It was good and the ingredients were fresh, but I have to say that I like the crepes from Crepevine better.
Service was good and they are family friendly… there were at least a few highchairs available.

I live half a block away from QM, and I love the convenience of being able to run over there for coffee and bagel/​muffin/​pastry. I’ve had their crepes, and they’re fine. Primarily, though, they’re a welcome presence in the neighborhood.
The owners are nice folks. They try hard to please their customers-​big points from me for that. I love the low-​key, funky-​ish décor. For me, it’s a comfortable ambiance. It’s an easy place to meet, or to sit and read the paper on a Sunday morning.
This is the only place of its kind in the vicinity, and it’s far enough from Castro Street that it doesn’t attract hordes of folks. It’s a neighborhood place, and I love that it’s there.