Café Olli

Today I visited Café Olli on NE MLK and Failing for their cinnamon roll! I tried to get this one last week but, by the time I made it to this brunch hot-spot, they were sold out! We made it for brunch this weekend right when they opened and secured this coveted roll. I was so excited for this one, having already tried their baguette (freakin’ amazing) and read about their team of Portland restaurant all-stars just makin’ and bakin’ breads and pastries all diggity-dang day! And the bread in this roll is incredible. Not a brioche, but baked well to a deep brown and absolutely delicious. There’s really nice caramelization on the bottom and the cinnamon is great. The whole roll is great great great, except for the frosting… which I didn’t love. There is a ton of orange zest and flavor in this frosting, and while you can tell that the ingredients are top quality, something’s not working here. Both my wife and I immediately said, after taking our first bite, “frosting’s weird”. Something is off, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it! The frosting is not-too-sweet (which I normally love) and has citrus (which I normally love) but either the flavors here clash, or maybe there was something slightly spoiled about the orange juice? No idea, but it tainted an otherwise close-to-perfect cinnamon roll.

Favorite part: The bread they make in-house is top level!

Least favorite part: Frosting was …. weird?

*Rating are according to my preferences, scaled from 1-10

Overall Sweetness rating: 9

Moistness rating: 9

Frosting rating: 4

Cinnamon/spiciness rating: 9

Dough rating: 10

Freshness rating: 9

Heart/center rating: 9

Cafe experience rating: 8

Overall rating: 8.4 /10