Cafe de l'Orangerie: Japanese-style Spaghetti (Great First Date Location)

A hidden gem as it is located on West 73rd Ave in the residential areas, so I had not even heard of this French x Japanese cafe when my friend suggested it. French x Japanese reminds me of Moii Cafe, but that one specializes in crepes while this one features Japanese-style spaghetti, which is spaghetti with a much lighter sauce as compared to Italian sauces.

Creamy Tomato Spaghetti may look a bit plain as you can't even really tell if there's sauce or not, but trust me, it tasted very creamy (though not overwhelming). If you're a fan of creamy spaghetti like me, you'll enjoy this dish!

Creamy Tomato Spaghetti $9.80

Ponzu is water-based citrus sauce, kind of like vinegar. I know that ponzu is often used in Japanese cuisine, so I wanted to try it with the pork on rice. The pork was tender and I really liked it. The sauce was very appetizing and I loved the citrusy tinge that it brought to every bite.

Onion ponzu pork: pork sauté on rice with onion ponzu sauce $9.95

A popular item on their menu is the masago de creamy spaghetti. Even though this one is a creamy pasta with the same spaghetti, it wasn't as creamy as their Creamy Tomato Spaghetti. It had bits of seafood and masago mixed within the noodles, which created a unique texture to it.

Masago de creamy Spaghetti $9.80

A common Japanese dish, but one that you won't get bored of as I would call it a classic - chicken teriyaki on rice. It came with some fries and greens.

Chicken teriyaki on rice $8.50

When I saw chocolate fondant on the menu, I really wanted it because of 3 main reasons: 1. I love cutting open a dessert and having chocolate flowing out, 2. it was really cold in the restaurant and I wanted something warm, and 3. I wanted to see if it'd actually take 15 minutes (as the menu stated). 

All their desserts are made in the house, so I guess I can understand why it'd take 15 minutes to make this one. However, I was hoping it'd just come in a plate instead of a cup so that I could see the chocolate flowing out. It was nicely baked, but not the best I've had. 

Chocolate Fondant $4.95

I love matcha and I just had to try the matcha green tea pudding parfait (what a mouthful!). It came with a big scoop of ice-cream, sweetened red beans, and also my favourite mochi. So, basically it consisted of many things that I liked.

Matcha green tea parfait pudding $6.95

Even though this picture doesn't look very appetizing, but it shows the green tea pudding, which was very tasty as there were two different layers! I thought all the elements (ice-cream, pudding, mochi, and red beans) all went very well together. I would definitely choose this dessert over the chocolate fondant.

As it isn't in a busy location, this place wasn't busy when we were there. We got to stay as long as we wanted and it's a really nice cafe to meet up with friends to chat. However, we couldn't stand the temperature in the cafe - it was really cold! I don't know why, but they really should have cranked up some heat. I think the room temperature is just as important to guests because we couldn't enjoy the food or ourselves fully as the coldness was constantly in our minds. Also, I can't think of why they're a French x Japanese cafe other than the French name. Nevertheless, I'd definitely like to  come back to have some more Japanese-style spaghetti. 

P.S. I think this is a great first date location! Nice, cute, quiet, and affordable yummy food! Did I mention the tempting dessert too? :)