drink Archives - Curiously Carmen

Strike 破店

October 18, 2014

After a night out in Richmond, my friends and I were looking for a late night cafe to go to apart from our usual Well Tea. The past two times we went, they were sold out of pearls and/or something else that I forgot, so we wanted to try someplace new and get to know Richmond a bit better. By the way, if you’re reading this and have a good recommendation for late night cafes in Richmond, please let me know! I texted one of my friends, who suggested we go to Strike because they had cheap bubble tea.
After winding around and getting a bit lost in the plazas that surrounded the neighbourhood, we finally found Strike. We got there around 12am, and it was a full house! Very loud music and many loud conversations among the different tables. There was a very lively atmosphere inside 🙂After taking our names down, we decided to grab the menu while we waited. We were quite confused with the menu as they all looked like they were falling apart, stained, standard non laminated pages stapled together, crumpled and a bit frayed at the edges from the usage. To be honest, the menus looked quite gross to touch. They did say that this was a temporary menu, for their soft opening. We didn’t even know this place was new, but figured that’s why they had so many of those big plants with ribbons outside (Asian tradition).

To make up for the non-aesthetically pleasing menu, there was a really nice mural on one of the walls that I really liked. It took its part from the busy streets of Japanese cities, and reminded me of a documentary that I watched on Tokyo’s dense population and how restaurants managed (I am in love with Japanese culture if you haven’t figured it out already hehe).
They were having a half price special on tea drinks, but since I don’t fare well with caffeine that late I opted for the taro slush. The taro slush wasn’t on the menu, and the server had to double check if they had it. They were also out of pearls (Why do restaurants always run out of pearls?! I’m cursed!) so I got the coconut jelly instead. The taro slush was oddly bland. I say “oddly” because when you first drink it, you can taste the taro but the taste goes away instantly. It felt like I was just drinking ice slush, lightly flavoured with taro. I don’t think I would order this again.

My friends decided to split the Taiwanese chicken nuggets, large size. The chicken nuggets were cooked perfectly, very flavourful with the 5 spice powder (I think that’s what it’s called?) and tasted like what ideal Taiwanese style nuggets should be like. A restaurant that also serves their nuggets with fried basil is a plus in my books as well!
I didn’t take a picture of all my friend’s drinks, but here are two of them. The one in the middle was the honey lemon green tea with grass jelly bubble tea. My friend didn’t really like it because it was a bit bland, but for the special offer they had, they couldn’t really complain. The boyfriend ordered the milk tea with grass jelly and pudding in the back. He said that the milk tea was good, but he had a really hard time getting to the pudding because they were all in big cubes that didn’t agree with the straw. He ended up pulling apart the top of the bubble tea container and scooped it out with his spoon. 😛

All in all, Strike was average. The good thing about Strike is their late hours and their bubble tea special, but other than that, it’s meh. I can get the same tasting chicken nuggets at other Taiwanese places, but perhaps we can try their other dishes if we decide to come back. My slush was very bland, so was my friend’s honey milk tea. In the words of my friend, “I would come back here if I wanted cheap bubble tea”. Yes, cheap bubble tea indeed, but the taste and flavour was definitely sacrificed.

-Carmen

Soho Tea Room

July 26, 2014

Do you ever have posts saved up in your drafts and you forget about them until almost two months later…? Yeah, that happened to me with this post. I’ve heard many great things about this place, but I’m normally not in this neighborhood, so I never got the chance to try it until now (aka 2 months ago when I wrote this draft…oops). Most of the hype that I’ve heard about Soho is due to the fact that you can have alcohol in your bubble tea, and that they serve a delicious honey toast box. I haven’t had a honey toast box for so long :(.
The exterior of Soho was nicer than I expected it to be. I was expecting just the usual store front, but the wood panels and signage was a refreshing sight. If I didn’t know, I would have thought that Soho was a fancy, delicate tea room serving only the highest quality tea from around the world (Say that in a posh English accent, it sounds better, I swear!).

I would never have expected it to be a late night Asian snack joint! Anyways, they do have free parking in the back but the spots are extremely narrow and tight.
Walking in, the restaurant was pretty nice and like the exterior, had a West Coast style as well. Lots of wooden panels, and warm tones. They had a chalkboard wall as well, which listed out the specials. I was a big fan of Soho’s interior and exterior design.

This is their alcoholic menu! I found the “recommendations” part to be pretty interesting, as they suggest what alcohol goes well with which bubble tea. Never have I seen that before! I wasn’t feeling like having alcohol that night, plus we had to drive back so I’ll have to come back for it next time.
I wasn’t that hungry, so just got the standard Taiwanese salt and peppery chicken nuggets ($5-6? I forgot). I was a bit surprised that it came on a long plate like this, because I was used to the bowls or square plates that restaurants normally put it in.

It reminded me a lot of a Western appetizer that I would get at Earls or Cactus Club, doesn’t it? Anyways, despite the presentation, the nuggets tasted pretty good. Well seasoned with the traditional five spice powder. I liked that most of the pieces were pretty lean too.

Taro slush bubble tea ($4). I ordered it with pearls, but unfortunately, they were sold out that night which sucked, because you can tell a lot about a bubble tea joint with the quality and taste of their pearls. Oh well, more reason to come here again!

The taro slush was very sweet and slushy. I was also wanting to try the honey toast box, but no one wanted to share it with me and I didn’t feel like having such a sweet food item after drinking this taro slush. Next time maybe?
My friend got the noodle and Taiwanese nugget combo. I didn’t get a chance to try it but he didn’t complain about it. My cousin got the beef brisket noodles. Their thick noodles were really delicious and had a thick and chewy texture to it, similar to my favourite Taiwanese restaurant, Wang’s, down the block. The soup base was also really good and flavourful, and had a strong beef taste to it.

All in all, I enjoyed my brief visit to Soho Tea Room. We wanted to stay longer, but there was a long line up forming and we felt bad for holding the table. Plus, we were passively getting rushed out by the servers LOL.

With their interior design and plating of certain dishes, Soho really tries to balance both Taiwanese and Western cultures together, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on which way you look at it.

Pros:

Good bubble tea
Delicious soup stock for noodles and delicious noodles
Spent a lot of effort into the design of the place (inside and out)
Service was fast and attentive
Comfortable seating

Cons:

Parking lot was really narrow and squishy
Bubble tea was a bit pricier than what I was used to
Sold out of pearls the night we went 🙁
According to my cousin, there are really long wait times on Fri & Sat nights
If the restaurant is busy, expect to wait 20-30 minutes for your blended drink (disclaimer on the menu)

-Carmen

Basho Cafe, East Van

May 18, 2014

I’ve been to Basho Cafe three times now, but wanted to make sure I had a variety of different things to share in this post, rather than make smaller revisit posts. This place is very popular and has been on the top 10 of Urbanspoon for many weeks now, and for good reasons too.

Basho Cafe is a cute, quaint, and lovely cafe owned by a Japanese family. They offer a few full meal sets, Japanese inspired pastries, and drinks. I’ve tried many items and my favourite would have to be the matcha latte.
Upon walking in, you will find a selection of mini pastries. Some of their items are vegetarian or gluten free, if you’re into that. Many of their pastries are made with matcha, as you can see from all the green in the shelf!
This is their menu. They only have three main dishes. You can add a plate of 3 pastries, tea, salad, and a daily soup for only $3, which is a really good deal as I’ll show you below what it looks like! Even though this place is a coffee shop, you can leave the place decently full and satisfied with their food.
The first time I went with my friend, we both decided to order the veggie lunch set ($10ish). Normally, I don’t like eating my veggies but I was surprisingly in the mood! I was pleasantly surprised at how big the plate was.

As for the veggie rice bowl, I enjoyed it very much. It came with avocado, cucumber, broccoli, carrot, cooked sweet apples, and a side of house made tofu mayo. The rice underneath made this dish very filling, and it was also flavoured with some sort of rice vinegar. The daily soup that day was broccoli, which was very flavourful and had a nice puree texture to it. The salad was a standard vinaigrette, as was the green tea.

A close up of my pastry selection. Sesame miso cookie, matcha cake, and chocolate mochi mochi. All three pastries weren’t super sweet, which I liked. The cookie had a toasted sesame, buttery taste to it but it wasn’t greasy at all. The green tea loaf had a very strong matcha taste, and was light and fluffy.

My favourite was the chocolate mochi mochi. I loved the chewy texture to it, and how the chocolate wasn’t super sweet! Out of the three, I would probably buy the chocolate mochi mochi again because the other two don’t feel as if it would be worth their separate price.
I really enjoyed my first visit, and wanted to show the boyfriend this place, so off we went the next day! Unfortunately, we went 30 minutes prior to closing and they were sold out of many pastries. We ordered the matcha brownie and matcha coconut cookie. The matcha brownie had a nice, chewy texture to it while the top had a toasted sugary taste. The matcha cookie wasn’t too sweet, and the coconut flakes added a light coconut flavour to it, which wasn’t too overpowering.
I told my friend about this place, and she really wanted to try it, so I went again! She ordered the veggie lunch set, which I talked about above. I wanted to try something different this time, and decided on the teri pulled pork lunch set.

The pulled pork was very tender and soft, and full of flavour. Just like the veggie bowl, it came with Japanese rice that was cooked with some sort of rice vinegar which I loved! The soup of the day was yam, which had a puree texture to it. The pastries I recieved were the green tea mochi mochi, sesame miso cookie, and another mochi pastry. I really liked the green tea mochi mochi because it was very chewy and squishy, and full of matcha flavour! I wasn’t a big fan of the other mochi square (forgot the exact name, sorry), because it was filled with different types of nuts, I would have preferred it without the nuts.
We also wanted to try the matcha latte, since the last two times I came here, I saw that it came in a pretty big bowl-cup and it looked very good. Turns out, if you order a lunch set, they will take off $1 off the matcha latte so that it only comes to $2.75! They also did not charge us for soy, which is a plus.

I also didn’t know that it came with a free pastry. I fell in love with the matcha latte at first sip. It comes unsweetened, so you can really taste the pure matcha flavour. It also wasn’t too hot, so I didn’t burn my tongue. I liked how it came with no foam.

It was very smooth,and full of matcha flavour. Delicious!
Overall, I think that Basho Cafe is worth the hype. They have very delicious matcha pastries, as well as matcha lattes. My friend mentioned to me that this place looks like a perfectly crafted Pintrest space, with all the eclectic decorations and focus on quilts and tea cozies.

It has a very welcoming atmosphere. The family that runs this place is also really friendly. Although the lady doesn’t speak much English, she is very friendly, and always has a smile on her face. I’m glad that Basho has opened up, I will come here again when I’m craving matcha goodies.

Bubble Queen

April 20, 2014

Bubble Queen is a very popular bubble tea joint in the Lower Mainland. My favourite is their fresh mango bubble tea with chunks of fresh mango on top, but I decided not to get that today because I have plenty of mangoes at home right now.

Their fresh mango bubble tea is to die for- it is creamy, sweet, blended perfectly, and on top of that, they add a generous amount of fresh mango chunks on top.
Upon walking in, we were really surprised that there were only five other customers here on a Saturday night (This picture above was taken from Yelp). I’ve been here five other times, and the line up is usually out the door.
I noticed that they have moved their menu on the wall, they used to have menus that customers pass around. It was easier to read, but there was so much on the menu, making it hard to decide what to get! I imagine that the menu would be hard to read when there are a lot of people, since the line up goes in front of it.
More options! If you choose the specialty drinks, you can get free pearls. However, the cost of the speciality drinks are at least $1-2 dollars more expensive, so I’m not sure if you’re actually getting a good deal or not. They also serve bubble waffles or toast boxes as well.
Notice all their mangoes in the fridge and shelf? Yummm! I’ve never seen this place so empty before. I also noticed that the floors were really, really sticky and the tables desperately needed to be wiped down. However, if you’re just grabbing takeout, it’s not a problem.
I finally decided on getting the passion fruit calpis slush with pearls. I always get their fresh mango slush with mango chunks on top, but I felt like having a change today. The other drink is their coconut slush with pearls. Both drinks came to $10.10.
I didn’t really taste the calpis juice in my drink, the passion fruit was very strong. I feel like this would taste better not as a slush, since calpis is usually served just like a juice. I probably won’t order this flavour with calpis again, because it was too sweet for me and I didn’t taste any calpis! The pearls were very warm, but as I mixed my slush with the pearls, they tasted pretty good. They were chewy and sweet!
The coconut slush with pearls was so good! It was so creamy, rich, and frothy with a strong coconut taste. I liked how smooth it was. I wish I had ordered this one instead!
Also would like to point out their enourmous stack of chocolates for their bubble tea! Overall, Bubble Queen has very good bubble tea at a decent price. I predict that as the weather becomes warmer, I will be paying more visits to this joint!

-Carmen