D.wight L.
Yelp
Asian Tea/Coffee Shop but with a unique food twist. Of course they're gonna have popcorn chicken and other fried snacks to go with all them colorful, often sweet drinks with all kinds of things floating about. But this unassuming tea shop also has some significant food offerings that you just don't run into at this level. I'd even say sit-down restaurant quality food, although there is nothing sit-down about their format, straight counter service/take-out spot.
I've had about 3 different drinks here and all are about $7ish, which is standard these days for these bigger tall sealed cups. Nothing has wowed me but they are standard/suffice. I feel their drinks run on the sweet side and even at 50% has a big noticeable sweet tinge. I ordered a topping once, some lychee jelly and it made the drink much sweeter than the 50% requested. I think a few tablespoons of the syrup that the jelly sits in, got put in the cup, which if you're trying to curb the default sweetness already, kinda seemed like an 'oh well' transaction.
Popcorn Chicken ($10/3.5*) Big hunks of marinated chicken thighs fried in this crisp Asian coating that almost seems like tiny balls of starch, much different than say just flour or bread crumbs.
Very crisp when warm but if you let this get cold, it totally transform into something else. Those crisp pearls turn mushy and gummy when cool, which made me assume a mochi-like coating. Quite flavorful bites though, very well seasoned, even has a tinge of heat from some red pepper. The basil was just raw leaves, and I definitely prefer fried basil as it adds a nice cooked anise flavor versus raw leaves which remind you of a salad.
Spaghetti Bolognese ($18/4*) I tried this in-house once and when it came out it looked like a sit-down restaurant version from the nice heavy plate-ware to the presentation of nicely twirled pasta in a very balanced portioning.
Very rich though, like the sauce is cooked down and maybe even a pat of butter is added as I felt a dairy richness in the texture. Also made it more oily and when I was eating this, I didn't have a salad or vegetable dish with it, so it was just a bit too rich for me as is. I would definitely try this again but steam some veggies at home or make a nice fresh salad to go with.
Pepperoni Pinza ($22/4*) They also have pinzas here with different toppings. A pinza is a 'Roman' style pizza. This may be my first try of one. It is a thinner crust that gets really crisp, almost cracker crispness on the initial layer but it does have some chewy bread traits.
Their sauce is awesome super thick and tomato-y with big hits of oregano. When hot the hits of tangy/sweet sauce and floral hits of oregano are divine, that I just may go Margherita next time. The pepperoni was okay but made it very salty, which is a given, but it even seemed saltier than a conventional pizza like Mt. Mike's.
Spaghetti Pomodoro ($16/3.5*) I ordered this for take-out once to bring to a casual lunch buffet. Their tomato sauce is quite thick almost closer to paste than it is to sauce for me. I just prefer a looser/juicy sauce.
The sauce was also surprisingly spicy, even after requesting it mild after being asked over the phone. It was so spicy that the child I brought it for wasn't able to eat it. I ended up taking it home for myself.
Cool spot where the uniqueness will get me to come back. Hope they can stick around.