coffee and tea Archives - Curiously Carmen

Mr. Chu Tea and Coffee

September 16, 2020 Leave a Comment

I found myself in South Surrey again, but this time in the White Rock neighborhood! Latte and I decided to finally have our picnic day here and since Mr Chu was across the street from Emilio Finatti Pizza, it was the perfect time to stop by and grab a bubble tea to enjoy at the beach as well. I heard about this place before and read good reviews about it!

Mr Chu is a popular bubble tea shop located in White Rock. The shop was closed to customers due to the pandemic, with the cashier taking orders and payment at a table that blocked off the door.

We came a bit after they opened, and a line was already forming so I expect they do get quite busy. There aren’t many decent bubble tea shops in this area either.

Mango slush: After verifying that the mango slush was dairy free, I was good to go. The mango slush was delicious and really good quality. It was blended very well and smooth. Meanwhile, the mango tasted real or at least made with frozen mangoes instead of a syrup. I had the mango slush at Gong Cha recently and it did not compare, Mr Chu was better!

In addition, the pearls were sweet and had the perfect, chewy consistency. They tasted very fresh. It was the perfect mango slush and I would happily order it again.

Mango calpis slush: The fiance ordered a similar drink, a mango calpis slush. He found it delicious as well and had no complaints about it.

Roasted oolong milk tea: Latte has been here a few times and went with the roasted oolong milk tea. She had no complaints with her drink and enjoyed it as well.

Mr Chu is a delicious spot to get decent bubble tea in White Rock. There aren’t many good bubble tea shops in South Surrey compared to Vancouver, Burnaby, or Richmond for example. I wouldn’t purposely drive all the way here just for Mr Chu but it’s really good for the location. It would be comparable to other bubble tea shops in Vancouver.

Mink Chocolate Cafe

August 8, 2020 Leave a Comment

I remember seeing Mink Cafe a lot during the hot chocolate festival. I believe they had some kind of special grasshopper drink that people were posting online! How interesting. I tried crickets once and it was interesting… they were dried so they were very crispy. Anyways, I’m going off topic.

While venturing out to South Surrey, Latte looked up a place where we could hang out after having lunch at Pho Sunrise and suggested Mink.

I haven’t been before but heard good things, and their chocolate seemed like great quality so why not give it a try?

This Mink location is located inside Morgan Crossing. It was pretty spacious inside, with half of their tables gone for social distancing. They had hand sanitizer by the door and I felt clean and comfortable in there.

I wish they would have asked for our contact information for tracing though.

Hot chocolate, 70% cacao dairy free: I was happy to see that they had a dairy free version with their dark hot chocolate. I chose oat milk as my dairy substitute.

The hot chocolate was delicious! It was creamy, rich, and decadent. The dark chocolate was very smooth and easy to drink. The sweetness level was perfect, not too sweet but not too bitter either.

They also gave me a free chocolate on the side (weird that Latte didn’t get one with hers though….) I gave it to the fiance when I got home and he enjoyed it.

White chocolate waffle: The waffle was not good. Although they had heated it up, the waffle was still hard and tasteless. I wouldn’t order it again.

All in all, Mink has really high quality chocolate as evident in their drinks. You can also buy a bunch of chocolate as gifts. In addition, they also have fondue which sounded delicious, but I was already feeling full from lunch.

I’m glad we came here and I would go back to Mink for a solid cup of high quality hot chocolate.

Trafiq Bakery

January 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

I am slowly catching up on reviews from the holidays! I’ve been eyeing Trafiq for awhile because I’ve heard great things about their cakes.

Since my birthday was coming up, I wanted to try a cake from Trafiq and fell in love with the Pretty in Pink cake from the website.

While trying to order the cake online a few days prior to my birthday, the website kept saying out of stock and they don’t answer their phones.

I figured I might as well check out this place for lunch and have a slice of the cake before placing the order! Cola accompanied me for lunch, and I enjoyed it so much here that I came back a week later for lunch!

Trafiq is always bustling, busy, and loud. You place your order at the till, which can be a bit of a wait because of how busy it is. I found their ordering system not very efficient. They could benefit from having two cash registers because there is always a line.

Seating is also not very comfortable, with the tables a few inches from each other. If you’re looking for a quiet place, this is not the cafe to go to. Tables are usually occupied but turnover is quick, just keep an eye out and have one person sit at the table while the other places the order.

DIY sandwich: I ordered a custom sandwich. At the beginning of the line up, there is a piece of paper where you circle the choice of bread, meat, sauce, cheese, and toppings. I chose focaccia bread, chicken breast, pesto, guacamole (at no extra cost!), Swiss cheese, sprouts, and arugula.

The sandwich was delicious! Thick focaccia bread slices, flavourful grilled chicken breast, and fresh veggies inside. I have no complaints about the sandwich.

DIY croissant sandwich: Cola ordered a custom sandwich as well. I don’t remember what exactly she got, but she also enjoyed her sandwich a lot.

Pretty in pink slice: The Pretty in Pink cake is their version of a strawberries and cream cake. This was sooo good. It came with layers of vanilla cake with airy strawberry mouse. Vanilla sour cream was also added, which sounds a bit weird but went well with the vanilla cake and strawberry mousse.

The cake was light with the perfect amount of sweetness. The cake was finished in a pink, white chocolate glaze which gave it the cute pink colour!

Needless to say, I placed my cake order that day. I added my own touch to it with some star candles from Michael’s, and LINE Friends characters, Brown and Cony.

DIY sandwich: I came back the following week for lunch, where it was equally as chaotic. I ordered a similar sandwich to my first visit, except I switched the bread from foccacia bread to cranberry pecan bread.

The sandwich was equally as tasty this time. The cranberry pecan bread was delicious too!

All in all, Trafiq is a delicious choice for cakes and sandwiches. The only negative is how chaotic and busy it is in there all the time! They are also too busy to answer their phones so don’t even bother trying to call to place a cake order like I did.

Grounds for Coffee

January 7, 2020 Leave a Comment

After a satisfying dinner at Jamjar Canteen, Brie and I walked along Commercial to digest and chat more. We came across Grounds for Coffee and decided to head in for some tea and dessert.

They are right beside my current favourite ice cream shop, Elephant Garden Creamery! I haven’t noticed them before because I make a bee line immediately to Elephant Garden, whoops!

Anyways, Grounds for Coffee is a fairly new cafe, and is the second location. The original location is located by UBC. The cafe was spacious and warm, with wooden hues. It would be a good place to study or to catch up with a friend.

Since we came about a hour before closing, their pastry shelf was on the emptier side.

Rooibos tea: We both ordered a rooibos tea that night. The rooibos tea was warm and comforting. There was a hint of vanilla to it as well.

Chocolate chip cookie: We also decided to split a chocolate chip cookie! The cookie was delicious and tasted homemade. There was a lot of chocolate chunks inside too!

Grounds for Coffee would be a good place to get some work done or meet with a friend. Compared to other coffee shops in Vancouver, Grounds for Coffee wasn’t as crowded (could also be that we came later in the night) so I appreciated that too!

Mr. Mustache Tea and Dessert

December 19, 2019 Leave a Comment

Mr. Mustache is a cafe across from Metrotown. The cafe used to be Cafe Joie, which I wrote a review on three years ago. I didn’t realize that they closed down and got replaced with Mr. Mustache! After a quick Google search, it looks like they opened in early 2018.

There is also a Mr. Mustache location in the Marpole/South Granville area.

I didn’t actually visit the cafe, as these pastries were brought as leftovers from a work event. They seem to be continuing the trend of cute, Instagram worthy food and drinks though!

I sampled three of their pastries. The pickiness in me is wishing that I rotated the pink cake so that the Mr. Mustache card is showing!

Matcha cake: Starting with the matcha cake, I found this to be delicious. The matcha was earthy but not overpoweringly strong. I would describe this cake to have a light, airy, mousse texture. If you’re a matcha fan, I would definitely recommend this delightful slice of cake.

I quite enjoyed this and wish I could have had more than a few bites! But I am very sensitive to caffeine and did not want to risk not being able to sleep, especially since the next slice of cake also contained tea.

Peach oolong tea cake: I assumed that this would be a strawberry cake. To my surprise after looking up the menu online, it was actually a peach oolong tea cake ! Not many of these out there, so I was quite curious as to how it tasted.

The peach oolong tea cake was delightful and delicious as well! The peach flavour gave it some sweetness and went really well with the oolong tea. It was a very fragrant cake.

It tasted exactly like a peach tea, which was interesting to me! I really like Teavana’s peach tranquility tea so this slice reminded me of that. There was also some hidden real peach slides inside the cake.

Cheesecake: Last but not least, the bumblebee cheesecake! The cheesecake was made Asian style, meaning that it was also light and airy… but not as light as Uncle Tetsu’s. This was very enjoyable to eat as well!

A thin layer of jelly glaze on top allowed for the cute bumblebee design! I thought it would be mango or passionfruit, but it was just a plain, sweet glaze.

I’m not sure if this is because I had the cake a day after, but the glaze did not stay on the cheesecake. The whole layer of jelly glaze peeled off when I tried to get a bite the cake. It wasn’t a big deal because it was still delicious, but it made it a tad bit messier to consume.

All in all, trying these three pastries made me want to visit the actual store. You could taste the quality in the cakes and they have a cute factor as well!

An interesting thing to note about Mr. Mustache is that they are open until 12am. They probably get a lot of students cramming for exams here. Well, if you’re craving desserts at 11pm, you know where to go!