House of Small Wonder used to be a cute low key French cafe located not that far from my apartment. I had actually never been there but had always envisioned myself going, eating a croissant and reading the paper there. Since then, it closed down and moved to this space next to this great Japanese place called Zenkichi.
With this move to the new place, it's still an adorable cafe but the new space reminds me being in a tiny magical treehouse. Seriously, you walk in and there are no real windows (so it's a bit claustrophobic) and there's a large tree trunk that runs through the middle of the restaurant. The menu is a funky fusion of European cafe sandwiches like avocado goat cheese and croque madam sandwiches to Japanese influenced food like the sashimi don to the genuinely bizarre fusion food like taco rice. I had really wanted the sashimi don (especially after seeing the table next to me get it) but they had JUST ran out. Sad. What I should have done was order another Japanese inspired dish but for some reason I blurbed out that I would get the grilled chicken sandwich ($12) while Paige got the Taco Rice dish ($13) and we split the banana cake ($4). The chicken sandwich did sound really good on the menu: grilled chicken (dark meat), arugula, tomato, yuzu pepper mayo, with melted gruyere cheese on a toasted brioche bun and served with a side salad (I got the Mediterranean version). All the flavors and ingredients were great except for me the bun was too dry and crusty. After having such an amazing sandwich yesterday with The Meat Hook shop, I was a bit let down by this one, mostly because of the overly toasted bread. I did like that they used the dark meat of the chicken since it did make the chicken juicer. The "mediterranean" salad was really just a bunch of chopped up red pepper, tomato and cucumber. I guess I was expecting it to have feta cheese and was sad that it didn't. I tried a bit of the taco rice and it was a really interesting combination of flavors. It was ground pork with taco seasoning over a bed of sushi like rice, chopped vegetables, cheese and a fried egg. I know it sounds weird but it all kind of worked together and seems like it would be a really good hang over food.
But the real winner was the banana cake. It was pretty tiny but it was served with the most amazingly fresh whip cream. The bread was moist and had a nice touch of banana that wasn't overwhelming. I wish it was bigger but I guess for my health, it's best that it wasn't.
All in all, I would still recommend this place but I would say stick with some of the Japanese influenced food and get there early so that you can get the sashimi! The table to the right of us also got the cold ramen dish and the vegetable udon dish which both looked great. Also they got a small deduction because they are cash only and apparently the ATM in the back charges a $5 fee. Total bill with tax, tip and drinks: $27/pp
Photo Credit: Yelp
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