MNGO Dessert & Coffee Bar

MNGO Dessert & Coffee Bar recently soft opened, offering kakigori (japanese shaved ice), mango flavored drinks and desserts, and a large variety of tea and coffee drinks including nitro teas, charcoal lemonade, and espresso tea latte combinations.

The cafe occupies the former space of Big Joy Family Bakery. The interior has been remodeled and is now brighter with more open space. On our first visit, we were quite overwhelmed by the large menu selection and had a hard time choosing just a few things to try.

Mango Kakigori

I had initially been drawn to this place because of their Kakigori, which is japanese-style shaved ice. I’ve seen photos of kakigori and love the delicate presentation with flowers and cream.

The mango one has mango flavored ice, mango pudding, fresh mango and cream. It also comes with a side of mango sauce and condensed milk.

This is actually my first experience with kakigori so I don’t have much to compare with. The ice was very fine and only very lightly sweetened. I found myself having to use a lot of the mango sauce and condensed milk to give the ice more flavor and sweetness.

Matcha Green Tea Kakigori

The matcha version contains matcha flavored ice, brown sugar jelly, red beans and cream. Again, I wish the ice was a little sweeter and found myself needing to use a lot of the condensed milk.

Nitro Thai Tea and Charcoal Matcha latte

I was really excited to see them offer several nitro drinks including nitro cold brew coffee, nitro matcha green tea and nitro Thai tea. I love the frothy creamy finish of nitro drinks and this is the first time I’ve seen or had a Thai tea version. You can add milk, syrups or creams, but I chose to just have it plain. The Thai tea is already sweetened. It was a tad too sweet for my liking but I still quite enjoyed it and would get it again.

They offer a series of duet lattes which all sounded very interesting. I wanted to try them all but managed to control myself and start with this one. I loved the color contrast and really enjoyed the flavors. It was a fun drink and I’m looking forward to trying the other combinations.

Overall, we had an enjoyable first visit. While I didn’t love the kakigori as much as I wanted to (I think my bias for Taiwanese-style shaved ice is part of the reason), I really enjoyed the drinks and there are many other drinks and desserts on the menu I want to check out.


MNGO Dessert & Coffee Bar
4176 Convoy St. San Diego, CA 92111
https://www.instagram.com/mngocafe/