Cafe Sophia

No longer open

I used to love this place when I lived in the area. I would eat there or order out at least once a week. So when my friend want to go there for her birthday lunch it was a no brainer!
We get there all is the same but they have a new buffet I was really excited to try it. Unfortunately I found the food too oily and salty.
I expressed my disappointment and was given the opportunity to order from the menu instead. I ordered the Chicken salad which i remembered to be delicious unfortunately that too was very salty. Again I expressed this to the owner Sophia and was about to add «Hey, maybe it’s just me» before I could complete my sentence Sophia cut me off saying very rudely «Maybe you should eat somewhere else». I was about to take another bite but I pushed my food away. I would have walked out instantly but my friends were still eating I didn’t want to ruin their day.
Here I was looking forward to lunching at my favorite restaurant, praising this woman to my friends and telling them her story. She just destroyed all the respect I had for her. Very insolent and BadTameez Aurat (ill-​mannered lady). Very disappointed.

Dirty pool by the landlord… Last night tonight and they dont have the money to open at a new location. Good food… :(

Extremely friendly, homey, service offering earnest but not overly challenging Afghan cuisine. Fried mantu are fine; pumpkin appetizer is better; both a grilled beef dish and a complicated chicken dish were tasty entrees. All of this food is accompanied with some very American side dishes (slices of Texas Toast; small green salad and balsamic vinaigrette) and two Afghan chutneys (mild and hot), both of which are delicious and worth putting on everything.
If it were within walking distance of my house, I’d probably come back; given that it isn’t, I probably won’t, but I’ll remember it fondly.

The food was pretty bland but two things stuck out as exceptional on the menu: custard dessert and afghan chai. Both were fantastic. The fella waiting on us (Ali) was also funny and very very nice. Great service all around. It might be worth trying the buffet to figure out if there are some dishes that I like better than the veg kofta and hummus I ate.
We had a group of 6+kid on a Wed night and they easily accommodated us. They were super nice about moving tables together and making sure that we were happy.

Halal Afghan food with a classy café twist
Does café Sophia have
a) Excellent dishes with a great visual factor
b) Quaint but elegant atmosphere
or c) Excellent service provided by a down-​to-​earth and proud owner.
…try d) all of the above.
A friend recommended this place and what a recommendation it was.
Best Afghan cuisine in the south bay (as indicated by their best of Palo Alto award 2012).
We ordered spinach samosas with fried potatoes ($ 10.83)
Karutee ($ 10.95)
Mantu ($ 9.95)
Started off with salads and chutney served in adorable dishes… excellent food with great presentation.
The owner was attentive, sweet and intuitive… she OFFERED to split the check three way to help us out.
I highly recommend this place to regular mantu munchers and newbies to Afghan food alike!

Expensive! Small Portions!
Great sweet potato fries though!
Come for a loud and busy atmosphere!

I don’t know if it was ordering something different, but the food was delicious last night. The beef was tender and perfectly medium rare. The seasoning they put on it made it really pop. Add the hot sauce and it’s off the charts good. The chicken kabob was very flavorful as well. I also tried some Afghani soup with beef which was a very nice starter. Add in the laid back environment and the fun art and I’ve become a convert.

Coffee is good, the rest was pretty average.
We had the Ali Special consisting of a very small salad, two rice dishes, and chicken kabobs. Both the chicken and lamb were over cooked and tough.
The place appears a little dirty, parking is limited; but, the owner makes an effort to be friendly and provide service. The sauces are good and Afghan bread very good.

Have to admit this place was just whelming. My best friend is Afghan and has promised to feed me food that will redeem her cuisine after this place!
Had a mid-​week lunch here as a group. A bunch of us ended up ordering the same thing — chef’s favorite. I liked the mantu, but hey, aren’t all dumplings delish? The other two components to it weren’t memorable or particularly flavorful… maybe the chef’s favorite, but not mine.
Service was not great. The women were busy chatting with each other, though they did come by to do the usual order-​delivery-​payment.
Oddly, a few of us ended up with some tummy pains after eating here. I had the worst of them with food poisoning-​ish symptoms while the others just had the stomach cramps and other unmentionable issues. Yea, not coming back!

I wish there was a 3.5 rating because this is more than just a 3 but not quite a 4.
I went for the lunch buffet which was nice and pretty cheap ($ 10). There’s a selection of some bread, two veggie dishes and two chicken dishes and mantu. I LOVE mantu. They are these little Afghan dumplings served with a yogurt sauce that I cannot get enough of. The mantu here is pretty good but I have had better (where I literally licked the plate clean of the yogurt sauce, whoops). I really liked their chicken dishes and the veggie curry had a nice flavor. The dessert was a saffron pudding with rose syrup. I am not used to rose syrup so it tasted a little like eating potpourri but it was actually kind of good… and a little weird.

I love the afghan food. Their salads are really good. There fusion menu includes burgers that come with fries. The burgers are excellent but most of the time I feel like I“m going to break my teeth on their fries.
They also have an extensive beverage list as well as desserts. I’ve never tried any of them but they look really good. They are just kind of pricey especially after the meal.
This is a small local restaurant. Service is usually on the slow side. The food is also a little on the pricey side. If you want to get a meal and a drink.
It has very uniqe, and very charming décor. The ceiling is covered in a mural and fabric. They have taken an old, dull buildign and turned it into a work of art.
Bathrooms are clean, well kept, but are not attached.
This is a cute spot for a date, but If you are all about bling bling and want to take her to a spiffy place, this isn’t it. You can tell this place is old.
I’d like to reiterate: I think there is a lot of room for improvement in service

Eggplant appetizer (buranee banjaan) was pretty huge! Decided to try this instead of baba ghanoush because this was supposed to be fresh eggplant in fresh tomato sauce. I felt it was lacking in taste though, added chilli sauce (which came in this really cute wooden box) and it was better! Free grilled bread was awesome with it! Maybe baba ghanoush is worth a try next time :)
Pleasantly surprised by the salad that came w e chef special! It actually went pretty well with the eggplant appetizer.
Wasn’t such a fan of the sambosas, beans with spinach in puff pastry is a bit odd.
Loooved the bolani. Ah mashed potatoes and crisp skin!
Mantu was not bad, veggies that came with it were definitely frozen though. Could tell from the watery nature.
Our server didn’t really speak very much English I think. Originally I asked her for recommendations and she didn’t look like she understood me. Pretty nice though.

All you can eat Afghan food at lunch? I couldn’t resist after seeing the banner! The lunch buffet is $ 9.99, and this review is for the buffet only.
Of course they had hummus, which was smooth and well seasoned, not too garlicky. There’s pretty good salad bar with mixed greens, beans, feta, tomatoes, chutneys, etc.
For warm foods, there’s a grilled thick bread that’s good for dipping foods, but if you prefer rice, they have two types of long grain rice (brown and one with cranberries.). There were too types of stewed chicken, one of which was yogurt based, but they were a little greasier than everything else. There are lots of vegetarian items like green beans, spinach, eggplant, and my favorite — baked pumpkin with tomatoes and topped with a yogurt sauce. There was also a warm sweet rice dessert, but we were too full to try it.
It got pretty busy during lunch on a Friday, and they replenished food quickly. It was a pretty good deal for their lunch buffet, and the food coma that follows isn’t as bad as after an Indian buffet.

A nice local dinner or coffee hangout. They are a bit slow in service and take out, but the food is not too bad.
We had baba ghanoush, which is a nice dish of eggplant mashed and mixed with various seasonings. This one had the eggplant baked or broiled over an open flame before peeling, so that the pulp is soft and has a smoky taste.
We also ordered shami kabab (chicken) and beef tika kabab. Served nicely with some salad and white rice. The shami was savory.
Of course, if you are going to eat Afghan, then you have to have Bolani. This is a vegan flat-​bread baked or fried with a vegetable filling — a thin crust stuffed with a variety of ingredients, such as potatoes.
You don’t want that set of ripped six pack abs without 100’s of sit-​ups?
Then, let these guys help… ask for 6 baklavas; sweet pastry of layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey.

Decent dinner joint. I had the beef tika kabob. Nice juicy chunks of beef with two mounds of rice (white and brown) and a little skewer of roast peppers. I probably would get the beef medium rare instead of medium next time. The mini-​salad and toast that comes before the meal is also nice (you dress the salad yourself and dunk the bread in a garlicky oil). Sambosa (puff pastry with spinach and feta) was tasty, and the big cluster of sesame seeds on top is nice. Mantus were great too, though the yogurt sauce made it confusing looking. I also kept thinking samosa and momos. Culture confusion!
Dessert was fermi, which I almost would rather have without the strawberry reduction and the chocolate drizzle since it’s nice to just have rosewater rolling around your mouth.
Quickish service and it was nice for chitchatting since the waitress disappeared for like half an hour.

Great place with fast service. Probably not 100% authentic but as a lunch place it hits the spot, both taste wise and price wise. The place is owned and operated by one lady so that would make it possible for the service to be inconsistent as I’ve read in some reviews — but personally, I’ve always experienced nothing but good things.
I recommend the chef’s favorite special, or if you’re like me, just get a plate of mantu, my favorite of them all.
This is a small business that anyone in the Midtown area should be proud to patronize.

Café Sophia used to be a coffee spot just down the street. I was saddened when they closed years ago, but happy that Peets coffee moved in immediately to fill the space. Little did I know that owner set up a full-​fledged Afghani restaurant a mere 3 minutes away. I came for lunch several times to investigate.
– Kandahari kabob plate: ($ 9.95) The bread they brought at the start was soooo good — dense and chewy, with a nice dipping sauce; very hard to hold back. As for the meal, my chicken kabob was tasty, with a nice turmeric infused crust; But the beef was overcooked (the owner had forgotten it on the grill — she made another batch for me which I took home). 3 stars for the meal, but another half star more the extra effort to keep this customer happy.
– BBQ Afghani Bacon Burger. ($ 7.95). The owner pointed out this was not true pork bacon, since that was not halal, but they used lamb/​beef bacon instead. No matter — it tasted great! The burger itself was large, excellent, and also topped with lettuce, fresh tomato, onions and a little homemade BBQ sauce. Salad served on the side. A Home run — 4.5 stars for a great quality/​price ratio.
– Veggie combo plate: ($ 10.95) This included 3 different veggie specialties: Kadu (pumpkin), Sabzi (spinach), Banjaan (eggplant) served with both white and brown basmati rice. My favorite of the three was the eggplant. My least favorite was the bland pumpkin (a shame), which could have used more spicing. A satisfying meal nonetheless.
I won’t be back for the pumpkin, but I will be back for another burger, and to explore the menu further.

The pre-​dinner salad is pretty good:
The pre-​dinner bread is thin and crispy: it comes with really good garlicky dipping oil.
The Veggie Chef’s Favorite is good, and a bargain for $ 10:
The ashak (dumplings) are al dente, and the potato bolani /​dipping sauce is good. The sambosa (spinach filled turnovers) had great flavor, but it was a bit too soggy, as if it had been warmed up in the microwave: The sambosa is actually really good if you take it home and put it in the toaster oven: it becomes crispy and it’s great.

Tried take-​out from Café Sofia the other day and quite enjoyed it. It was ready within 10 minutes of ordering and the folks there were super friendly.
My wife and I shared a Chef’s Favorite and a Falafel Platter. Plenty of food for two. I enjoyed the flavors of both, though would probably try a Kebab and/​or something different next time just to mix it up.
They also have a sign posted for free wifi as a more traditional coffee shop during the day. Will have to give that a whirl sometime soon too.