Tea Garden Grand Re-opening

Apr 282013
 

In March, Tea Garden closed temporarily to move to a new location. S was quite distraught since it was his favorite place and most-frequently-visited place before I moved to San Diego. (Actually, even after moving to SD, it’s probably been our most-frequently-visited place.) Even though the food isn’t amazing, we like the homestyle and simple dishes, and it’s affordable for students – I don’t think anything on the menu is over $10. In addition, they have a wide selection of milk teas, to which S is quite addicted.

I’ve been eagerly scouting food news since their closing, and I was excited to hear that on April 19, they were re-opening in a new location just a couple of blocks from their previous one. Unfortunately, that plaza happens to have pretty horrible parking, but that’s already a running theme on Convoy St.

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The interior looks much nicer and is much bigger. It’s lost much of the Taiwanese “diner” feel to it, actually.

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S and I were hoping for some additions or changes to the menu, but everything remained largely the same. We were told that there is a new drink available, though – the Tea Latte (奶蓋茶 in Chinese). S ordered one to try out:

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Black Tea Latte 紅奶蓋茶 ($3.25)

Basically it’s tea with a layer of foamed cream on top. You can either mix the foam in, or drink it from the rim without the straw, so that you get a mouthful of the tea through the foam. Haha. It’s hard to explain, but it tasted good so you should try one for yourself.

I wanted to try something different and spotted the “A-Special” in the noodle section of the menu. It’s a bowl of noodles with minced pork and a bowl of wonton soup. I decided to try it out and was surprised at the amount of food I got! The bowl of noodles was quite huge, and I got a decent-sized bowl of soup.

A-Special: noodles with minced pork ($7.99)

A-Special: noodles with minced pork 傻瓜套餐：滷肉麵 ($7.99)

A-Special: wonton & vegetable soup

A-Special: wonton & vegetable soup

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Infini Tea

Mar 012013
 

When S and I are looking a quick Asian meal, our usual stop is Tea Garden on Convoy St. They have decent Taiwanese dishes – I’m particularly fond of the crispy chicken, Taiwanese sausage, and fried rice, in addition to the milk teas and brick toast. However, Tea Garden is temporarily closing for a few weeks due to relocation – its new address will be 4633 Convoy St, supposedly occupying the current Luong Hai Ky space. So in the meantime, S and I have been figuring out where to go for our Taiwanese-dinner-and-tea fix.

While we haven’t quite found a new dinner spot, we did try out a new tea shop, Infini Tea, located (coincidentally?) near the Infiniti car dealer, in the same plaza as Spicy City. I heard rumors that this shop was opened by some former Tea Station employees, which excited S and me because we really enjoy the drinks at Tea Station.

The shop has a pretty sizeable space – I’d say almost as big as Tea Garden. They currently only make drinks but are planning to serve food soon. There is a huge mural on the wall of boba characters… super cute.

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Up2yoü Cafe

Jan 302013
 

After our dinner at Convoy Tofu House, we decided to get something sweet. S and our friend J are always in the mood for milk tea, but I wanted a dessert, so we decided to check out Up2yoü Cafe – I’ve heard about this place from other friends and bloggers and was quite curious about their honey toast. (I have no idea why they use the umlaut. J thinks it’s to make the “u” look like a smiley face.)

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It’s a small location tucked away behind BBQ Chicken, near the intersection of Convoy St and Clairemont Mesa Blvd. There is a tiny parking lot and some street parking available. Thankfully, it wasn’t very crowded that Sunday evening.

They offer Japanese crêpes, snow ice, and honey toast. I would have gone straight for the snow ice had it been just a tad warmer that night. You could add fruit, cream sauce, and/or ice cream to your honey toast. I chose two items from the cream sauces: custard and condensed milk. It was also topped with honey and whipped cream.

Honey toast with custard and condensed milk

Honey toast with custard and condensed milk ($4.75)

It took quite some time for them to call my order number, but it was well worth the wait. The toast had a crunchy exterior and very warm and fluffy on the inside. Continue reading »

Tea Station

Dec 132012
 

S and I both had to work on Thanksgiving Day this year, so we decided to keep everything simple and didn’t plan for big dinners or parties. One of our good friends, who also had no holiday plans, came to hang out with us, and we decided to go to Tea Station for dinner. Why? Because they were open, their TV is often tuned to ESPN or a sports channel, and we wanted to watch football. (The Jets lost so miserably.. why was this even a Thanksgiving Day game?!?)

Anyway, sports aside, I realized that I hadn’t done a post on Tea Station yet even though I’ve visited several times. Usually we just stop by for milk tea, but sometimes we crave Taiwanese food and come for dinner, too.

We decided to split a fried crispy chicken as an appetizer. This is one of my favorite Taiwanese snacks/street eats – popcorn-style chicken with fried Thai basil leaves, dusted with chili powder.

Fried spicy chicken 鹽酥雞 ($4.50)

Fried spicy chicken 鹽酥雞 ($4.50)

Tea Station’s version is not bad – the seasoning was flavorful (though not as spicy as it looks from the photo). I wish there were fried fresh Thai basil leaves, though – sometimes I enjoy that more than the fried chicken itself.

Tea-flavored spiced pork knuckle 茶香豬腳 ($9.25)

Tea-flavored spiced pork knuckle 茶香豬腳 ($9.25)

A typical dinner set comprises of the entree (in my case, the pork knuckle), rice, soup, and three cold side dishes. S and I pretty much order the same things every time: I get the pork knuckles, and he orders the braised pork with bamboo shoots (茶香筍絲扣肉). The sauce for both dishes tastes about the same: a very standard soy sauce-based braise, with some hints of tea.

The rest of the dinner set wasn’t very impressive. The soup was a flavorless vegetable soup – we could pick out a few strands of mung bean sprouts. Sometimes they’ll have miso or radish soup, which is much better. The cold dishes were two types of pickled cabbage, and spiced potatoes.

Anyway, the real reason we like Tea Station is…

Hot rose milk tea 熱玫瑰奶茶

Hot rose milk tea 熱玫瑰奶茶 (Nov. special, $3.99)

The milk tea. S and I agree that Tea Station serves the best milk tea in San Diego – the flavor of the tea is much more apparent than in other milk tea joints. Each month they have three or four special drinks for $3.99, and I chose the hot rose milk tea, since it was a chilly day, and I love rose-flavored tea. I love how they serve it to you in a super cute small tea set. (Pro-tip: Tea Station’s milk teas tend to be on the sweet side, so I’d recommend half sugar.)

Anyway, S and I have been regulars at Tea Station, despite protests that it’s a rip-off. It’s hard to give up such good milk tea! It’s a little late, but I do hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to more holidays (quickly) approaching!

Tea Station (Kearny Mesa location)
7315 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, CA
http://www.teastation.us

[Irvine] Class 302 三年2班

Aug 212012
 

I love Taiwanese food, and S and I sometimes lament that there really aren’t enough options in San Diego (which would be why, every time we go to LA, we eat five meals per day and bring back as much as possible).  Recently, we went to a concert in Irvine, which also has a number of Taiwanese eateries, including the ever-popular 85C Cafe.  Unfortunately, since our concert ended late, we did not make it to 85C Cafe, but instead went to Class 302, which started in Rowland Heights and recently opened its second location in Irvine.

I never went to elementary school in Taiwan, but my friends said that the decor, tables, and chairs really remind them of their schools.  The seating area was actually quite big, and there was a separate counter for take-out orders.

Cute wall decor

Chinese menu, written on the chalkboard!

The menu is rather extensive, and we all had a hard time deciding what to get.  They have snacks & appetizers, bento boxes, noodle soups, rice dishes – all the things you can find at casual Taiwanese eateries.  In the end, I decided on the pork feet with peanut bento box (花生豬腳便當).

Pork feet with peanuts bento box 花生豬腳便當

Bento veggies: mung bean sprouts, baby corn, cabbage, & carrots

The bento box had a layer on top with the veggies and rice on the bottom, and the pork feet were served in a separate dish.  I thought that sort of defeated the purpose of the bento box.

Pork feet, veggie layer, rice layer (served with ground pork sauce and pickled cabbage)

The pork feet were actually somewhat disappointing – they were not as tender as I had hoped, and there was no trace of peanuts.  I liked the veggies and rice though, and the portions were huge so I happily took half of the meal home for the next day ^^

We also ordered some sweet potato fries to share.  I love sweet potato fries, and in Taiwan they are often seasoned with plum spice powder, which really brings out the sweet potato taste.  These were crispy and delicious.

Sweet potato fries with plum spices 梅子地瓜

And of course, I had to get milk tea.  FYI, I ordered it with half sugar – the waitress told us that they made their drinks on the sweet side.  Half sugar was just about perfect for me.

Milk tea 奶茶

If I had known earlier, I would have saved room for the famous snow ice – there were two pages of the menu dedicated to snow ice…!  How disappointing that I didn’t notice until it was too late… oh well, next time I will be sure to save some room for dessert!

Class 302
10890 Culver Dr., Irvine, CA
(949) 552-0555

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