What To Eat In A Day In Pasadena

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Pasadena is Los Angeles' sleepy, charming neighbor to the east — known for an immensely walkable Old Town district with beautiful, well-preserved architecture, and a reputation for closing early. Pasadena is also the largest city in the San Gabriel Valley, considered by some to be the home of the country's best Chinese food. I'm still working on my list of favorites there.

One of my ideal weekend activities is biking or taking the metro to Pasadena, then walking around, exploring, and eating. The sidewalks in Old Town are full of pedestrians discovering new places. A business doesn't have to drum up online hype to succeed in a walkable area — folks can simply stumble upon it. Los Angeles has many walkable pockets, but this is one of the best.

The places I'm highlighting here — Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery, BadAshBakes, Nana's Green Tea, Amara Cafe & Restaurant, and Motto Tea Cafe, all in or near Old Town — represent just some of what makes Pasadena a food destination. If you manage to fit all of this into one day, you'll be pleasantly full. I recommend splitting with a friend and walking between cafes. Two other places I love are Artisanal Goods by CAR, which is on my list of favorite bakeries in the Los Angeles area, and Mandarin Coffee from my list of favorite LA coffee shops. Both are worth a stop if you have the time (and room).

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Start your day at Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery, where a specialty provisions shop and a case of excellent cheeses greet you at the entrance. Cheese is a big deal here, but it's not the only ingredient the chefs have mastered. The head chef, Thomas Kalb, is an Iowa native, and his Midwest influence runs through the menu.

For brunch, I get the Huevos a la Americana: a frittata of eggs, tater tots, salsa macha, veggies, and queso fresco. The tater tots add a salty crunch that pairs well with the salsa macha and queso fresco. For a bit of sweetness, I'll get the rich sticky toffee pancake (Medjool dates, toffee caramel, and coconut whipped cream) for the table to split.

Agnes is the rare restaurant I will happily eat at for both brunch and dinner. For the latter, I like the pastas. The standout is the loaded baked potato dumplings that add cheddar, sour cream, broccoli, and bacon to fluffy gnocchi. The dish encapsulates the restaurant's blend of modern American dining with Midwest comfort cooking. As a mushroom fan, I usually get the handmade strozzapreti with morel mushrooms and nutty Rahmtaler cheese. The rustic pasta holds the umami mushrooms and creamy cheese sauce well.

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I hope you're ready for a treat or two because the next stop after brunch is BadAshBakes, an LA-area bakery generating lots of buzz. The pastries here aren't overly sugary. Instead of relying on over-the-top sweetness, each pastry's flavor shines. The cinnamon rolls often sell out quickly — I've been lucky enough to snag one of the mini sample versions before they disappeared. If you get there early, the classic and matcha cinnamon rolls are the usuals. On Saturdays, rotating flavors such as banana pudding, red velvet, and cookies 'n' cream pop up.

Owner Ashley Cunningham began as a private chef to actors and NBA stars. She documented her work cooking for celebrities on social media, garnering her a large following that jumped at the chance to eat her baked goods. She also ships her thin, crisp-edged cookies across the country. Cunningham knows how to make flavors pop. Last time I went, I tried the cornbread cookie, which was fun and tasted like a slightly sweeter, denser cornbread.

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Now it's time for lunch. I initially came to Amara Cafe & Restaurant because I heard it had some of the best hot chocolate in the Los Angeles area. The drink does indeed deliver — it's thick and rich like a pudding, and sweet with a dark chocolate bitterness. If you can't visit in person, the shop also sells the mix on Amazon. What keeps me coming back, though, are the arepas and cachapas.

Cachapas are a corn pancake from Venezuela. If you want breakfast for lunch, you can get them with a mild, tangy white cheese, eggs, black beans, meat or avocado, and a side of guasacaca, a Venezuelan avocado sauce. The lunch version serves them open-faced or folded over plantains, meat or avocado, cheese, and black beans. The pancakes are delicious either way, with a roasted corn flavor and a crisp exterior.

Owner Amara Barroeta was a food science chemical engineer and first runner-up to Miss Venezuela before moving to the U.S. She opened the cafe with her husband in 2013 after obtaining a marketing certificate at USC.

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Pasadena has good pancakes — but these come Japanese-style. This is the third pancake on this list, but trust me, they're all different. When the Japanese soufflé pancake became the latest viral rage, Motto Tea Cafe was the place to get it. The fervor has died down, but this is still the place to go — and now the wait is a bit shorter.

The pancakes are tall, light, and fluffy. Soufflé pancakes naturally have an eggy, custard-like richness. The flavors are decadent — nutellamisu, crème brûlée, matcha crème brûlée, mango sunshine, and even savory flavors like pork sung (shredded and dried pork). The iced teas are equally lavish, with flavors like king grape, cocomelon, and white peach lemon jasmine bliss. Drinks have add-on options like cheese mouse, agar pearls, popping oat, brown sugar boba, and jasmine green tea jelly. If you have room after a towering pancake, the crepe cakes are delicate and delicious.

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This Tokyo-based chain is opening locations throughout the U.S., and the Pasadena location is the first shop operated by Nana's Green Tea rather than a franchisee. Dinner here is classic Japanese rice bowls, stir fries, and curries. This being a day of sweets, though, I come here for the parfaits. I fell in love with Japanese parfaits on my last trip to Japan, and to finally find them here in Pasadena felt like a 12-hour flight reduced to minutes. These ice cream sundaes are similar to Filipino halo-halo — both are colorful mixes of flavors and textures that make a playful dessert.

Japanese parfaits come in tall glasses with multiple layers of not-too-sweet ingredients. At Nana's, they come with a base of hojicha, matcha, or black sesame pudding and jelly, vanilla soft serve, corn flakes for some crunch, a scoop of hojicha, matcha, or black sesame ice cream, red bean paste, whipped cream, and mochi. Each layer is a new dessert experience, much like your day of eating through Pasadena.