Tea Houses- Boba- Snacks? Why has this been kept secret?

mmm-yoso is not on vacation.  That is the name of the blog, silly. Cathy is a-blogging and Kirk is taking a much needed rest, and really is on vacation.

Oh, I am sooo the White Girl on this blog...I had no idea exactly how Caucasian I was.  Sure, I had the whole "chee fee" incident, and I didn't know sago were the same as boba and...well, I didn't know much about boba...and, I had seen "tea houses" and "tapioca drinks" and figured 'eh, Asian Starbucks wanna-be's'.  Really.  I figured those 'tea' places served hot tea and those silly boba drinks.  Lots of young Asian kids hang out there; I saw some drinks coming out in plastic cups and also figured well...you do know the signs say "Starbucks Coffee", right? So it must be the same- tea and those boba  drinks and Starbucks makes coffee and all those frou frou drinks.  No big deal.

ANYHOW...Years ago, from the place inside 99 Ranch, I got a tea and milk and 'pearl' drink and it was good tasting, although I thought chewing on the giant boba (tapioca pearls) was kind of like chewing on snot, albeit flavorless snot, but the boba part held not much fascination to me...I love tapioca pudding, but the actual boba in a beverage...eh.  Well, I liked the tea part, then the milk and there was a lot a lot of liquid sugar...and I don't like sweet.

Then there was an epiphany.  I was having lunch with Mr.  C, at Bolsa on Mira Mesa.

and we had our 'standard' Pho stuff:  

and we started talking about boba drinks. In my mind I was thinking, 'oh yeah, sweet stuff with snot chewies on the bottom'. However Mr. C has never steered me wrong, and he started telling me that the place in the same mall as Bolsa, Tapioca Heaven, had the *best* milk tea boba of anywhere. So, I was polite.  I had the milk tea at Tapioca Heaven and it was *wonderful*.  It tasted like ...tea...with milk...and there was a choice of boba  to put in it- regular brown, small brown, green and strawberry. You could ask for no sweetener.  Who knew?

The most fascinating thing I noticed at first inside of Tapioca Heaven was that they had free wi-fi.  Hello!

Then I noticed something else, much more important- they have snacks.  Fried snacks.  Inexpensive fried snacks. But Mr. C and I had just finished a nice lunch at Bolsa and I didn't want to eat any more, even a snack.

and so, I wrote Kirk a note. "Why haven't I heard of these places that sell boba drinks with snacks?" I asked.  "They are wonderful- so much more fun than a Starbucks, which does fascinating high calorie coffee based beverages and sells some 'meh' tasting sweets and sandwiches, but by no means sell fried goodies".

The reply, from The Missus, was "Oh boba, that is so last century". 

Ahem.

So anyhow, I was on a quest.   Since Mr. C had told me that  the boba milk tea at Tapioca Heaven was the best, I decided to make that my standard...to see if any tasted better anywhere else.  Of course, I needed to try snacks also.

So The Mister and I went to Tapioca Express. See, it used to be next to Bolsaa-on Convoy.  Bolsaa isn't there any more, so you won't be confused. It is going to become some Cajun-y place in the summer.

When you walk into Tapioca Express, the wall is lined with the menu of beverage choices.   At the register, where you order and pay, were two typewritten pieces of paper with a menu.  The Mister and I had to try a bit of everything.

Chicken nuggets, chicken wings, fried squid, all with a choice of no spice, medium or hot. (we tried all three,the no spice was great and the medium was good too, the hot was just a little too much in the sense that you couldn't taste the chicken as well as with the medium spice).  Steamed pork dumplings and also fried donut holes with both whipped cream and also a vanilla cream dipping sauce.  Each of these snacks were less than $4 each. This is wonderful snacking- or a meal.  I saw one guy with something that looked like loco moco and I will go back to try that.

Next we went to K Sandwiches, got a boba milk tea, hot milk coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Also, since we were at K...I got a pate chaud; its only $1 and so flaky and fresh and filled with a wonderful pork pate mixture.  A friend, who  was born in France and is working out here,  said it is very authentic and good.

We also got a BBQ pork Bahn Mi  ( think it is Number 9 on the menu) for $3.69.  Here is a cross section view of both.

Snacks, free wi fi and boba drinks.  Fascination. 

So, the other day The Mister and I went to the Tea Station on Clairmont Mesa.  Its in the same mall as Lolita's and Teri Cafe and that Pho place everyone says they go to.

They have sit down service inside, and a menu .

We sat down and were waited on! At the other places you would walk up and pay and wait for your drink, kind of like Starbucks.    

We tried the tea flavored dumplings ($6.50)

The flavors were different between the green ones and white ones both the dumpling and the filling, but you can see in the second photo (click- all the photos enlarge) a cross section and that the dumplings were quite meaty and full, very fresh and I believe one was chicken and the other pork.  They were delici-yoso!

We also had to try the fried spicy chicken ($4.50)

Lightly crispy, nice spice (you can tell them the level of spice you want).  Fresh.  Great.  Gosh, it's adult chicken nuggets!

Tea flavored spiced pork slices ($6.50), served with 3 side dishes, it says...either they figured we could not count because we were White, or rice is one of the sides.  Whatever.  Plenty of food.

Oh, and we got beverages...

So, anyhow, the secret is out.  Tea, milk tea, boba, not Starbucks...all with free wi fi and snacks...fried snacks.

We have now gone to many of the tea places around town, not always with a camera...and we try the fried chicken at least.  Nothing has been bad or disappointing.   

Some of the beverages are unusual- sesame, lavender, rose, yogurt..just about everything Starbucks doesn't have.  { Snow ice, or snow bubbles are merely finely *fine* shaved ice with flavoring-kind of a Slushee®, for the White folks out there.}

Tapioca Heaven definitely had the most tea-tasting milk tea, but getting any of the beverages without sweetener helps.

Oh, and now I kind of enjoy chewing on those tapioca snot-like things....it's part of the whole "boba experience"

Tapioca Heaven Cafe 9225 Mira Mesa Boulevard Suite 115 San Diego 92126

Tapioca Express 4646 Convoy, #106B San Diego 92111 (858) 363-9889 website

Tea Station 7315 Clairmont Mesa Boulevard San Diego 92111 (858)268-8198website

Comments

[Ellen Brenner]

Don't feel bad, Cathy, I'm totally behind the curve on the whole boba phenom too, partly because I too don't go in for a lot of sweet. So knowing there are places I can ask for it unsweetened helps. Now do you think they would freak if I asked for 2% milk? :-D

[Cathy]

Hmmm....Well, Ellen...I am not sure they have a choice of milk. As Andy mentioned above, they mostly use powdered creamer and back in the 'olden days' of last century, they were all made with sweetened condensed milk. I know there are a lot of soy drinks on all the menus and so that would be safe. I hadn't considered the calorie or fat count. Sorry. I am going to be trying Wandering Chopsticks' suggestion and getting the house tea, iced, the next time I go to Tea Station-or any of the other places. I have never read anything about boba being nutritious or healthful in any way, so am not sure why they do it...kind of just an add in...Anyhow, I was more impressed these places all do hot foods. I really never knew.

[Chubbypanda]

Welcome to the boba bandwagon.

[Cathy]

Thanks, CP. I am just apalled at myself for not knowing about the abundance of snack foods within those darkened walls...