Cafe Noir

Came here with my aunt, uncle and mom to just spend time. Had a latte, passion fruit tea and fruit patbingsu that came out quickly and delicious. (:

Cool spot to hang or study. Very popular, diverse crowd for sure. Plus it’s open late, can’t beat that.

PATBINGSU! Shaved ice is amazing! I love how large the portions are. My group of friends, four of us, shared one and it was just enough for all of us. We got the Oreo, fruit and green tea ones. I’d recommend any of them! The drinks are also good and this is a great place to come and study!

If you live in Federal Way and you’re looking for a café to either study late in the night or simply hang out with friends, this is your spot. Open until midnight with friendly staff, yummy food, wifi, and plenty of tables. However, because this is the only spot in Fed to study/​relax in, everyone and their mothers (literally & figuratively) are here. One thing to note is that when it is packed, it gets extremely loud so bring headphones if you’re trying to study.
I haven’t had many of their drinks since I’m more of a water drinker but their white chocolate mochas aren’t bad when I need some caffeine to stay awake. Plus they come with a leaf design so that’s cute. I’ve also had a sandwich (I think a BLT w chicken?) which was actually pretty good for under $ 10 and came with some chips. Do I think the chips were Lay’s chips? Yep. Could I make a better sandwich at home? Totally. But for a café that specializes in it’s desserts, I think the sandwiches were pretty good (but overall okay).
I would say Café Noir is known for their Patbingsu (shaved ice). For $ 11 to share amongst friends w the amount that you get is pretty fair. However, I have noticed on my most recent visit that they are skimping out on the fruit that comes with the shaved ice (although I’m hoping it’s because they used a weird/​new bowl now). The patbingsu comes w very fine ice that melts immediately when it touches your tongue, drizzled w condensed milk, piled w an assortment of fruit (usually), and a scoop of ice cream. Since I’m not a big fan of chocolate I always order the fruit patbingsu (see pics). All in all, Café Noir is a great place to get some dessert or get some studying done.

Been here before when it just opened and I am so glad to see they are doing well. Lately, I been wanting to go back and now that I have, I am planning on coming back here AGAIN… I would wish their service is a bit quicker though. I came in and there was no one. I rang the bell and it took them a while but it was worth it. I remembered I grabbed their fruit shave ice before and it used to have banana, red bean, and vanilla ice cream. Now they removed the red bean, changed the vanilla ice cream to strawberry and no more banana, hello to mango, some blueberries & green grapes.
My recommendation would be that, if they want to keep it with strawberry ice cream, I would change the fruit shave ice to ‘strawberry’ because honestly that is the star of the show.
They should let the customer chose what flavor of ice cream and please bring back the red bean!
Second, service: please have someone out rather everyone in the back.
Update:
Glad to see someone welcoming me. And they now have double scoop (cost extra) and extra toppings (also cost extra). But it is so worth it when I want the red bean on my order.

WHAT IS UUUUUP SOUTHEND PEOPLE?! You guys actually have a decent shave ice place hidden in the Fed?! Whaaaaat?!
After a rough eating competition at an AYCE KBBQ place, we decided to research for a good dessert place just to top off our already full stomachs. Café Noir was one of the contenders that stood out the most in the category for sweets!
Came here to try out the fruit shave ice but asked for just mango and strawberries in it because I wasn’t a fan of the other fruits. Oooh yes, it was mighty deeelicioso! It came with vanilla snow ice that was pretty light and fluffy; it was not what I was expecting! The tart fruits were a really good contrast to this ice! It was topped off with a scoop of strawberry ice cream that had chunks of fruit in it and it seemed like it was good quality. I literally thought that this shave ice was just ice at the bottom until we discovered that they added more strawberries and mangoes at the bottom! Haaaail yeeeeeuh!
The wait time for this was hella long, though. We probably waited a good 20 minutes for this thing to come out. With that being said, make sure you come here with people you like! ;)

Korean Shaved Ice.
This place has a really nice korean shaved ice selection and it is so refreshing. It is a must try if you come to this café. Parking is free but the place is small, but you can easily spot it out because so many people frequent this café.

I ordered a tiramisu, walked out… only. to find that it was fresh out the freezer frozen :(. 2 stars for being pretty though. How does one thaw a tiramisu when one only has 10 minutes to eat it :(

The good: caramel macchiato.
The bad: I noticed rotten red bell peppers in my sandwich, disgusting.
I didn’t try any of the desserts and at this point I don’t think I’ll be going back to try it. I was really put off by the rotten bell peppers and it makes me wonder what other bad stuff they serve.

I am in love! The Bingsu (shaved ice) is so good! Better than I’ve even had in Korea. I tried the green tea flavor but I look forward to coming back to try others.

Bingsu! Bingsu is Noir Café! A small, cozy café shop for students to hangout and study. You will find a lot of korean here. The bingsu was good, the drink and other cakes are okay. One bingsu is $ 15 to feed 3 people. Its huge!

Their shaved ice deserves more than five stars. First, it’s incomparable to amrican shaved ice as it is shaved frozen milk-​ice, not water-​ice.
I have only tried the ‘nut’, which is basically original korean shaved ice (which has mochi, sweet red bean, condensed milk, and soybean powder) plus roasted hazelnut (which blew my mind) and vanilla ice cream.
I will be dreaming about it until i visit federal way again.

This place can get crowded especially at night, were is the only place you can hang out and enjoy some coffee late night. They’re open till midnight so everyone are here relaxin and enjoying coffee. They have a large menu of drinks if your not sure what to order you can always ask the cashier what’s good

One of my favorite places to chill and hangout with friends, this is a extremely popular place especially for their patbingsoo (shaved ice)! But their sandwiches are to die for, I order the number 1, chicken, bacon ranch sandwich it came with a side of chips. I also ordered the grapefruit tea. Both were delicious!
I came here many times, and have always left smiling. Their patbingsoo is a must try, absolute love at first bite. my favorite is the fruit one because of the strawberry ice cream it comes with. Their workers there are extremely polite & nice!
Recommended!

This place is a gem in federal way. It caters to younger crowds and very open. The desserts and teas here are the best and the ambiance inside is very warm.
The outside doesn’t look like much but it’s different inside. The prices are very affordable and it’s a very calm place to do some computer work or simply reading a book. A definitely super yes for coming back for more. :)

I’ve been here numerous times for one thing and that is the Pat Bing Soo. Pat Bing Soo is a shaved ice dessert from Korea that is more of a large sundae with shaved ice at the base. This is generally a large dessert meant to be shared.
What sets Café Noir’s shaved ice apart from other places in this area? The ice is literally like fluffy snow. My favorite flavor is the green tea version which includes vanilla or green tea ice cream, sweet red beans, chestnuts, pine nuts, and assuming condensed milk? There are also other varieties such as Fruit and more western friendly versions such as coffee, Oreo, and Carmel.
This is a great alternative to your more traditional desserts as in it being satisfying but a lot more lighter. This place is open late but keep in mind this place has a lot of seating but still fills up fast.

I really want to give this place a 4 because it’s now the only place to get Korean shaved ice in Federal Way… but it just was not that good. I’m sure many will disagree with me. I think I am not crazy about it mostly because it’s more of the shaved ‘snow’ consistency versus ice. I really do like the ICE aspect of Korean shaved ICE. The patbingsoo here is too soft, fine and ‘snowy’ for my liking. I mean the flavor was great though. I only tried the fruit one but I heard their nut one is the best. So I definitely know I will still be back. I think they just need to re-​name their patbingsoo as shaved SNOW.
It’s a café setting and if I’m being real lots of Koreans and Russians. I don’tknow why but that is the majority demographic of the customers lol. there are also many studying and doing their homework here so it’s that kind of setting.

Only reason I come here is because this is the only place in Federal way where they have somewhat legit Korean style shaved iced. They changed owners and remodeled the café-​way better. Get the strawberry shaved ice and NOT the oreo one. The oreo one is way too dry and lacks any flavor.
The last time I was here the cashier got my order wrong. I asked for oreo shaved ice with extra condensed milk on the side but she thought I wanted oreo milkshake???
Got our shaved ice in 15 mins or so, they forgot my extra condensed milk, didn’t bother to ask cause I just wanted to eat it by then. Boooo, cause it really needed it cause it was so dry! And it was $ 10 dollars! So overpriced when its essentially shaved milk, oreo crumbles and 2 pieces of brownies.
I would come back to try the strawberry shaved ice again. Wish they added more variety of fruits or at least mochi to their shaved ice!

Finally, after searching for a long (long, long, LONG) time, I’ve finally found somewhere that serves patbingsu! For those of you who aren’t familiar with this yummy Korean dessert, it’s shaved ice served with fresh fruit, azuki (red) bean, condensed milk and topped with ice cream/​froyo.
After discovering Café Noir through a Unilocal friend, my family and I came here specifically to try the patbingsu. There were 3 different options (oreo, fruit and nut) each for $ 9.26. We ordered the fruit patbingsu, which came with fresh (and very sweet) strawberries, bananas, red bean, condensed milk and vanilla ice cream. Unlike traditional shaved, the ice was milky soft — no crunchy pieces or chunks! There was the perfect amount of each topping… just enough for each bite.
Only catch — the gal working told us that we were the last customers to order patbingsu because they were out of ingredients. It was about 8 PM and the café closed at midnight, so make sure you go early!

This place was alright. The place looked very cozy and welcoming and since the day was hot my friends and I decided to order the Korean shaved ice. We picked strawberry shaved ice and it was $ 10 whooping dollars plus tax (kinda pricy for shaved ice– maybe I’m used to Korean pricing). Anyways the display was nice but… they didn’t add much topping. It was slices of banana and strawberry with TINY serving of red sweet bean and TINY bit of condensed milk so when we ate, there was a lot of shaved ice left with no topping… and we paid like $ 10 for it.
So don’t go for shaved ice. Wasn’t that great.
But their green tea latte is pretty good. Cookie was meh.