Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Te Mana Café has cozy style, island food
Ocean Beach coffeehouse is exactly that...a house, with coffee, and some Hawaiian food, too.
If there were some sort of Reader coffee shop design award, Te Mana Cafe (4956 Voltaire Street) would be on the short list to win. This OB newcomer proves just how right it can be to transform houses into retail dining spaces, despite the sometime hurdles in doing so. Homes are...well...they’re homey, and there’s something about sitting in a former living room, or on what was once somebody’s porch, that gives a neighborhood café or small restaurant a welcoming aura.
Think of Te Mana as Cali-Hawaiian, with leis and tiki gods festooned around a Craftsman space. Indoor plants, comfy couches, and a bedazzled longhorn skull give the interior a charming (albeit somewhat kooky) vibe, and the patio soaks up afternoon sunlight like a champ.
Converted houses are more of an “old city” phenomenon, where zoning laws and neighborhood developments had more free rein than in a town like ours, where space is plentiful and there’s much less of a need to repurpose buildings. Elsewhere in the country, we see this phenomenon much more. Having converted homes be the exception might just give them more charm, in OB and all over town.
Te Mana's manapua
Running with the Hawaiian theme, Te Mana mixes it up with some island style. Egg bagels and suchlike still make up the majority of the menu, but Hawaiian plate lunch makes a delightful surprise appearance. Even more exciting are the manapua, Hawaiian steamed buns filled with char siu pork. They aren’t made at Te Mana--the owners have a local baker do the heavy lifting on that one--but that doesn’t detract from their tastiness.
It’s hard to overstate how nice it is to be able to get something salty, and not panini, at a café!
The rest of the café’s offerings include smoothies, açai bowls, kava kava (which some people go all googly-eyed over), and pretty good coffee. On the whole, we’re talking better side of average here, but it’s really the great space that gets Te Mana a big thumbs-up.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Te Mana Café has cozy style, island food
Ocean Beach coffeehouse is exactly that...a house, with coffee, and some Hawaiian food, too.
Te Mana Café has cozy style, island food
Ocean Beach coffeehouse is exactly that...a house, with coffee, and some Hawaiian food, too.
If there were some sort of Reader coffee shop design award, Te Mana Cafe (4956 Voltaire Street) would be on the short list to win. This OB newcomer proves just how right it can be to transform houses into retail dining spaces, despite the sometime hurdles in doing so. Homes are...well...they’re homey, and there’s something about sitting in a former living room, or on what was once somebody’s porch, that gives a neighborhood café or small restaurant a welcoming aura.
Think of Te Mana as Cali-Hawaiian, with leis and tiki gods festooned around a Craftsman space. Indoor plants, comfy couches, and a bedazzled longhorn skull give the interior a charming (albeit somewhat kooky) vibe, and the patio soaks up afternoon sunlight like a champ.
Converted houses are more of an “old city” phenomenon, where zoning laws and neighborhood developments had more free rein than in a town like ours, where space is plentiful and there’s much less of a need to repurpose buildings. Elsewhere in the country, we see this phenomenon much more. Having converted homes be the exception might just give them more charm, in OB and all over town.
Te Mana's manapua
Running with the Hawaiian theme, Te Mana mixes it up with some island style. Egg bagels and suchlike still make up the majority of the menu, but Hawaiian plate lunch makes a delightful surprise appearance. Even more exciting are the manapua, Hawaiian steamed buns filled with char siu pork. They aren’t made at Te Mana--the owners have a local baker do the heavy lifting on that one--but that doesn’t detract from their tastiness.
It’s hard to overstate how nice it is to be able to get something salty, and not panini, at a café!
The rest of the café’s offerings include smoothies, açai bowls, kava kava (which some people go all googly-eyed over), and pretty good coffee. On the whole, we’re talking better side of average here, but it’s really the great space that gets Te Mana a big thumbs-up.
Comments