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"I discovered a bakery and café in Kearny Mesa near the Mitsuwa Marketplace that was opened by two friends after a successful Kickstarter and highlights their Filipino and Okinawan backgrounds with a menu built around Asian ingredients and flavors. Now operating Tuesday through Sunday starting at 10 a.m., it has a grand opening scheduled for Saturday, December 16 with specials for some of the first customers. Cupcakes are early bestsellers — including ube cupcakes topped with leche flan, matcha cupcakes with yuzu frosting, pandan cakes with guava filling, and a turon-inspired banana spring roll garnished with shards of crispy rice paper. Other treats include calamansi bars, black sesame mochi, ube crème brûlée, and cheese danishes, and the bakery is mostly nut-free, substituting sunflower seed flour for almond flour in its macarons. Owner Chrisell Nguyen, who ran a custom cake business specializing in monogram cakes, now offers mini monogram cakes and will begin accepting orders for large-scale monogram and other special-occasion cakes in January; the shop also stocks fresh flowers for bouquets. Drinks use local Mostra Coffee and Paru Tea, with options like hazelnut, hojicha, and lavender lattes as well as strawberry guava tea, and early next year the café plans to add sidewalk seating and may expand the menu to include savory breakfast items." - Candice Woo