Ann T.
Yelp
Absolutely fisted and super crowded and I can see why as it's one of the nicer malls with lots of shops and eateries inside and I guess, one of the fewer malls in the Bay Area.
If anything this is what the Santa Anita mall and all of its surrounding businesses, as well as a slight mix of South Coast Plaza and the Century City Westfield, all placed within one mall inside the Bay Area. RIP to you NorCal people. I can't imagine waiting 2 hours for Ramen Nagi since even on the busiest days, I haven't waited more than 40 minutes, but I digress.
Anything you need for gifts, for yourself, something more upscale, something meaningful but cheaper and all kinds of cravings, this is the place to go! I do like that they have a plethora of boba options here of various chains and franchises. My favorites are Pink Pink Tea Shoppe and Rabbit Rabbit Tea as those 2 don't exist in SoCal yet. To combat how crowded everything is, I highly recommend seeing if these businesses have the option to mobile order so that you can just order, go window shopping, and then pick up your drink/order.
Pretty neat that they have an Eataly here with their market, multiple food options, and 3 floors of Italian goodies. They also have the Sekaido anime shop which I enjoy, the blind box centered PopMart, Gentle Monster glasses which I've only seen advertised on Instagram on hot Korean models, and a really neat anime shop, Sekaido, which has some rare items that I have not seen in other commonplace anime mall shops.
Similar to Westfield Century City you gotta pay for parking here which sucks, but it is what it is and at the very least it isn't as much of a claustrophobic mess as that parking structure. Also the first 2 hours are free, so if you know that you're gonna zoom in and then zoom out or if you have meticulously planned all of your pick up orders, you might get in and out for free!
I'll await the next time I go here, but again, I'm so grateful that I have the former Westfield Santa Anita mall near me, after visiting Valley Fair.