If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I don’t play around about mangoes. Ever since I was a kid, it has been my absolute favorite fruit. Moving to San Diego and discovering that there is an entire dessert cafe dedicated to mangoes has arguably been one of the highlights of my life. Since my first visit to MNGO Cafe in Convoy, I have been obsessed. So, when my equally mango-obsessed parents told me they would be visiting for the weekend, I knew exactly where to take them.
We pulled up to MNGO Cafe at around 9 p.m. on a Saturday. It was unsurprisingly busy — the line to order was 15 customers long. The workers at the counter busted out order after order, each patron quickly grabbing their dish before hurrying to one of the few empty tables.
My mom was quite taken by the ambiance — particularly by the big tree in the center, which had large plastic mangoes hanging from the leaves. According to her, a quick trip to the bathroom revealed a clean, well-kept restroom that “smelled like mangoes,” and even though the cafe was busy, it didn’t feel cramped or too loud.
Between the three of us, we ordered the OMG (Oh-Man-Go), the MNGO Sago, and a sticky rice mango smoothie. My mom saw someone else’s order of the OMG and was very excited to try it, as she’d never had mango sticky rice before. The OMG comes with three scoops of sticky rice, a pre-cubed mango, mango pudding, and your choice of ice cream — we went with vanilla. The MNGO Sago bowl has sago balls, mango chunks, mango-flavored pudding, ice cream, and coconut milk. The smoothie has sticky rice at the bottom of the cup and was topped with a creamy coconut foam.
Despite the line, we didn’t wait for our food nearly as long as we expected, which was a pleasant surprise. The cafe, unfortunately, did not have outdoor seating, which meant we had to take our order to go so that my dog wasn’t left alone in the car.
But even when we dug in at my dining room table 15 minutes later, the desserts were still fresh and delicious. My mom absolutely loved her OMG. She said the sticky rice was not too tough, the mango was fresh and juicy, and the ice cream was the perfect topping. I was also quite a fan of my mango sago. Since my first visit, I’d been meaning to try it, and I’m so glad that I finally did. The mango and coconut complemented each other perfectly, and I honestly had fun eating all the little sago balls, though it might have been a different story if I had trypophobia. My dad enjoyed his smoothie, though he did complain that it was hard getting to the sticky rice at the bottom of the drink. We ended up having to scrape it out with a spoon, so while it was still tasty, we definitely had to work for each bite.
Upon asking my parents if they’d return to MNGO Cafe, I received two enthusiastic yeses. My parents are notoriously picky with their food preferences, so I was delighted to hear that they loved MNGO Cafe just as much as I do! For any fellow mango-lovers looking for a sweet treat that still feels kind of healthy: MNGO Cafe is the way to go!
