All Entries Tagged With: "Bubble Tea"

Pearl Castle on Sexsmith, Richmond

Ever since we started going to and blogging about Bubble Tea places, we see a name that keeps popping up on comments from our readers. The name is Pearl Castle. I guess lots of people likes Pearl Castle and after our visit, we realize the reason why.

Like most Bubble Tea places, Pearl Castle is very much an Asian youngster’s hangout. These days we actually enjoy going to these Taiwanese Bubble Tea Houses as compared to Hong Kong Style Cafes. For one, Bubble Tea Houses generally have better decor and cleaner.

Pearl Castle is located on 3779 Sexsmith. It is actually on the same strip mall where Ellie is. I can’t remember the name of the strip mall at this moment.

Pearl Castle place always get very crowded at night. We went early as usual (at 4:30PM) when the place is just half full.

There is a certain class to this place and I can see why it is so popular. Pearl Castle is by far the hippest Bubble Tea house we ever been to. But the draw is more of their food.

Pearl Castle have a large drinks menu as expected. Their food menu too has a good variety of food. Arkensen and Nanzaro are beginning to want grown-up drinks … coffee. We’re OK with them getting this once in a while and seeing it’s a weekend too, we guess it’s alright.

They got a Coffee Bubble Tea and a Mocha Bubble Tea. The size they got above is large but it does not look large to us. To us it was expensive at $6 each.

I spotted a dish on the menu marked in RED that says EXTREME Spicy Hot Pot (yeah, with the word EXTREME in all caps). I simply have to get this one. This $9 dish came with rice and dessert and served in a hot pot on top of a little stove to keep the soup warm.

They even have an extra small plate of chili sauce in case you wanted it even more spicy hot!

The soup is EXTREMEly spicy. It’s so spicy it burns the tongue. In the soup are pork slices, sausage, tofu, cabbage and fish cake. The thrill of this is just the spiciness. If you love spicy food, this is it.

Rice came served in this funny looking one side bowl. This dish has a fun factor of 10 out of 10, if you ask me.

All the dishes came with this small bowl of dessert. It is Coffee Jello with beans. I like the Coffee Jello but personally I don’t like the beans.

Suanne ordered the House Special Stew Pork which costs $8.25. It is a big piece of fatty pork … sinfully delicious! More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Corner 23 on Cambie, Vancouver

You know, ever since we stepped into Flo Tea Room, my attention is now focused on BBTs. I have come to learned that BBT is short for Bubble Tea in foodie-speak. It is very much like AYCE and HKSC and TBN.

Come to think of it, we serious foodies must unite and make up a glossary of foodie acronyms. Tell me if you know of any foodie acronyms and I’ll compile a comprehensive list and post it.

OK, I admit. Other than AYCE, I made up HKSC and TBNH. Can anyone tell me what is HKSC and TBNH? LOL!

Bubble Tea is so Asian. I am not sure what exactly it is that makes it appealing mostly to Asians. Whites drink Starbucks and I had hardly heard of any self-respecting Gwei-lo’s liking it. Strange. I remember we once bought some to the office for our visitors from Atlanta. Those guys did not even touch a single cup although they kept asking about that little black balls in them.

Anyway, Jenny of My Secret Eden recommended to us her favourite BBT place. Corner 23 is located at the … well … corner of 23rd and Cambie. It’s easy to remember the address. Parking seems to be a problem when we went there as there are very limited and tight parking at the rear of the restaurant.

We were kind of surprised that there are so many wait staff in this place. And all of them are very young looking too … like I mean, where is the adult supervision in this place? LOL! Actually they were really helpful bunch of people and have lots of energy. I was rather impressed with them all.

Corner 23, like most BBT places, is also a youngster hangout which means it is quite noisy. We did not mind at all.

I know it is winter now in Vancouver. But wanted to try something new. We had BBTs already the last time so we opted for Slush instead. Their Slush’s costs $4.75 each. So we got ourselves a Tangerine Lemon Slush and a Lemon Yogurt Slush.

The Tangerine Lemon Slush has a citrus-ey taste as expected. However I cant taste any yogurt in the Lemon Yogurt Slush. They are fun drinks … that’s what it is to us.

Ahhhh … a chip off the old block. Nanzaro also gets brain freeze drinking slushes … just like his dad. You know, he will grow up to be exactly like me … that’s my boy! LOL.

Corner 23 has a rather extensive menu. If you are new to this place and do not know what to order, just flip over to the “Classical Taiwanese Dish” section of the menu. Pretty much everything you like about Taiwanese food is found here.

We did not even bother with this section. We already know what we wanted. We wanted exactly the same things that Jenny had when she blogged about it on her website.

If there is only one dish you are going to order, this is the ONE. Formally known as Wan Luan Pork Hock, you can just call this Pork Hock and they will know what you want. If you get this, please … please … please … keep this a secret from your doctor, OK? I never let my doctor know I dig this artery clogging good stuff.

This is unbelievably tender and fatty … simple awesome. We ordered the small one ($9) but they also have it in larger serving ($18). I can handle a $9 guilt but not the $18 one. More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Flo Tea Room on Granville, Vancouver

With the boys away on sleep over, Suanne and I took it easy for dinner. We had a very late dinner and thought that we go check out a Bubble Tea place because we had never really been to one other than Go Go Tea Cafe. Actually that Go Go Tea trip does not really count because it was over lunch time.

We went to the Flo Tea Room located at the south end of Granville Street in Vancouver. We did not know what to expect. We were quite apprehensive that this place will be teeming with Asian youngters hanging out for the night … i.e. it would be loud and noisy.

We found it kind of odd that the Flo Tea Room is located on a row of three bubble tea houses, including a Bubble World Tea House outlet. Since this visit, we are beginning to notice that the Bubble World Tea House has lots of locations around Metro Vancouver.

But it was not at all like what we expected. Why, it was exactly like any Chinese Cafes. Although we did not see any kids around (after all it was 9PM when we were there), there were a lot of people our age or even older. So, we’re OK.

Flo has quite a large menu for their drinks. See pix above … Suanne was perusing the drinks menu which came in in the form of a plastic folder. We were not very familiar with the drinks menu and was stumped by the range of drinks called Calpis. What is that anyway?

I got one of their new drinks. It’s simply called Flo Flurry which is a mix of chocolate slush with grass jelly and topped with Oreo crumbs. $4.95. As I drank this I was wondering how many calories there are here. More on following page. Click here to continue reading