Cafe Orina

Closed as of 10÷291÷12… maybe the over priced food scared away the customers.

The lady who owns this place is very nice and always greets her customers who enter her establishment. Some of her items are slightly over priced ($ 2 something for a soda) but most of her food is made to order. The fresh fruit bowls are made that morning and she has a nice selection of sandwiches.

Convenient and consistent food. A little on the pricey side, but what do you expect for a prime WC location? The owner, Michelle, is always friendly and the service is top notch! Only 4 stars because of the price. Other than that, I eat there just about all the time!
John

So, I had a meeting at Chapman University because I, for some crazy reason, think that I should maybe get a chemistry teaching credential. I still don’t know if this is a good idea because I actually had to drink a few glasses of wine before I could draft my personal statement last night. Not important…
I rarely find myself on this side of «the honky tube» and, because it took way more effort than necessary to cross it today (Seriously, Nor Cal? Learn how to drive in the $#@%ing rain instead of head-​on colliding into medians!), I decided to spend as much time as possible in WC. Post-​meeting lunch it was.
Aside from Broadway Plaza, I am pretty useless getting through WC. This place was right around the corner from Chapman, was not La Salsa (barf!), and had validated parking. Perfect!
So, this place cannot figure itself out. It’s a coffee shop. No, wait, it’s a deli. No, wait, it sells greeting cards and picture frames. Gah. The coffee was not bad. My sandwich was «eh.» I would hope that if I ordered a «turkey and cranberry» sandwich that it would at least have whole berry cranberries instead of that gelatinous, cylinderical crap that gives cranberry sauce a bad name. I mean, come on! Even I can make cranberry sauce.* Eh, whatever. My entire lunch of a (decent) latte, (mediocre) sandwich on sliced bread, and chips ran me $ 10. I figured this was a bit steep; but at least I didn’t pay for parking… I’d be pretty annoyed if that were the case as well.
Other than that, the service was very fast and the staff was very nice. Other than that, I couldn’t help but notice the fact that this place SO OBVIOUSLY used to be a Quizno’s! They didn’t bother taking down the Italian/​English signs that hang from Q-no’s ceiling! Eh, who am I to judge?
*Togo’s makes a pretty mean turkey-​cran!

Working in the offices next to the Pleasant Hill BART station does not leave a lot of options for lunch, but I am glad that Café Orina is one of them.
Michelle, the owner, is the sweetest woman. She will always greet you with a genuine smile, whether you are staggering in before a meeting for a coffee to prop up your eyelids or grabbing a quick lunch because you spent too much time Unilocaling in the morning and you have to distribute a report by 2.
The coffee here is superb – and that is coming from a bona fide, European-​trained coffee snob. It really seems that they use better milk than any other place (even Peet’s) for their lattes. The espresso is the good stuff – not the reject beans you find at Starbucks.
The lunch specials are good with generous portions. I particularly like the ones that don’t get a lot of play like the salmon with asparagus and the bibimbap, but I can’t fault a business for needing to make money.
I can safely say that Café Orina is one of the things I will miss most about working here. If you happen to work nearby, I’m sure you know that Café Orina is willing to earn your business with excellent service and great quality.

Just stopped in here to see if they had any internet access. They didn’t have any wifi but i decided to be polite and give the food a go. The korean lady who works here is very nice but she recommended me the special which is more expensive than anything else they have. The potstickers and fried rice are mediocre at best. The portion is good. I think i am just too picky when it comes to my peasant food (fried rice, jiao-​ze, etc) I should have gone with a sandwich. I would come back if i found they had free wifi. (The area is in desperate need of a café with internet)

The woman who manages this place is so sweet and welcoming. She learned my name the very first week I started coming in to purchase coffee and other snacks. When I got more adventurous, I began trying the Daily Specials. These will usually run about $ 7, and always come with a generous helping.
My favorite Daily Special is on Fridays — Pot Stickers and Fried Rice — which is definitely not the most authentic… but it’s tasty! The salads are also good, and always look fresh.

Just had the bibimbap daily special. I don’t know if it’s that the food in the general area is getting worse, or the food at Café Orina is getting better, but one thing is for sure: that bibimbap really hits the spot. While the ingredients are not 100% authentic, the Korean lady who cooks the food is miraculously able to improvise with what she’s got, and «will» the food into being Korean. It’s amazing!
She usually cooks her Korean specialties on Tuesday and Thursdays, with more generic Asian fare on the other weekdays. On Monday, I happened to have a fascinating chopped sauteed steak, which was surprisingly good, with real chunks of juicy steak amidst a bevy of onions and bell peppers.