Kenneth Hite ([info]princeofcairo) wrote,
@ 2004-12-16 03:02:00
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Entry tags:food

And Thus I Refute Oswald Spengler With This Delicious Beverage
Here's a thought for any and all vendors offering, or thinking of offering, bubble tea, especially mango bubble tea. If you grind up actual slices of mango and mush it in there with the tapioca pearls, it will be really much, much better than just using some kind of concentrate, or juice, or what-have-you.

Sashimi Sashimi, a kind of Ikeafied hole-in-the-wall sushi joint in Evanston, has embraced this wisdom. Their sashimi is more than good enough already, but that bubble tea -- man! Many thanks to [info]stjeromes, [info]themagdalen, and [info]tircha for suggesting that venue, and for their company.

Bubble tea has only been around since 1983, by the way, invented by Taiwanese beverage vendor Liu Han-Chieh. It's hard to believe that such a wonderful, yet simple food could be such a recent invention. Like Buffalo wings (invented in 1964 by Buffalo, N.Y. tavernkeeper Teressa Bellissimo), bubble tea gives one hope that the great days are still happening all around us, and that titans still walk the Earth.

Civilization is still young. There's stuff we haven't even tasted yet.


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[info]pope_guilty
2004-12-16 08:53 am UTC (link)
When I visited a friend in San Francisco, she insisted I try the stuff- I had bubble coffee. Since returning to Indiana, it's become clear that there will be no more bubble coffee until I can return to a civilized area. Curses!

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[info]adamdray
2004-12-16 01:34 pm UTC (link)
Bubble tea is teh nastay. Ick!

Then again, I've never liked tapioca. I was surprised to learn that it was made from sweet potato though.

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[info]jackwalker
2004-12-16 03:03 pm UTC (link)
Well, yeah. But then Spengler would claim that the declining years of a Civilization are often a time of shallow cultural experimentation and syncretism. It's all about the Soul of the Race, man. We're due for Second Religiosity and Caesarism any day now, I tell you.

(Of course, Spengler was full of it.)

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[info]princeofcairo
2004-12-16 09:40 pm UTC (link)
Anyone who would deny that Buffalo wings are part of a vigorous Springtime culture is quite obviously sketchy on multiple levels, yes.

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[info]chadu
2004-12-16 03:26 pm UTC (link)
I just found out that one of my local coffee stands does bubble tea. I'm working up the gumption to try it.

CU

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[info]snowy_owlet
2004-12-16 03:49 pm UTC (link)
Hear, hear! Bubble tea is one of the true gifts of the modern world.

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[info]robotnik
2004-12-16 04:06 pm UTC (link)
It's like Jack Handy said:

"If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take so much of it for granted."

We're living in a golden age.

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[info]welcomerain
2004-12-16 05:07 pm UTC (link)
When I desire bubble tea, I go down to Argyle, and get it at one of the Vietnamese places. Fruit only, baby. I had no idea you'd only been subjected to the nasty mix boba.

I will definitely visit Sashimi Sashimi now that I know they have the Real Thing.

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[info]fengshui
2004-12-16 06:48 pm UTC (link)
Bubble tea rules. Last time we were at a 99 ranch market, we bought about 3 pounds of boba pearls for like $3. We're hoping to start making our own at home, although the boba pearls don't last very long after they've been re-hydrated.

Yum!

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Bubble tea = friendship
[info]almostreal
2004-12-16 06:57 pm UTC (link)
I thought I would hate the stuff too and indeed I did the first time I tried it (the tapioca anyway. The tea was great). But somehow I accidently got the pearls in a watermelon one and I have gotten them ever since. I had no idea but most of the shops in Seattle use a mix now that I think about it. They have all these powders and syrups lined up along their counters. I have to start checking. I think this one place uses real 'red bean' maybe I'll try them again. Stay warm your highness.

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[info]tircha
2004-12-17 04:03 am UTC (link)
Mmmm, sushi.

I have only had bubble tea once, and it was so close to the sensation of sucking chewy eyeballs through a straw that I haven't since. I'll take an Arafat's Mysterious Blood over bubble tea any day.

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Eyeballs is right
[info]chrislehrich
2004-12-18 04:44 am UTC (link)
When I lived in Taiwan in the early 90s, people were always pushing me to drink this stuff. You don't really want to turn down free cold beverages in Taiwan, believe you me, so I'd drink it, but god-DAMN those things do indeed remind one of eyeballs. Well, remind is perhaps not the right word.... One has the imaginative sensation, that's it, of sucking eyeballs through a straw. How did this catch on all of a sudden?

I love Taiwan, and I loved most of the many weird things I ate and drank there, but bubble tea was one of those things I used to tell people about and they'd go, "Get out, you're kidding, balls of tapioca? In iced tea? Ick!" Now suddenly they're going, "What, you don't know about this amazing cool thing?" And I'm going, "Um, I told you about that and you said 'Ick,' and you were right. When did your brain turn into tapioca?"

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[info]theidlesthand
2004-12-17 05:24 pm UTC (link)
Ken Ken Ken. I like your writing man, but bubble tea and buffalo wings are clearly harbingers of societal, nay civilizational, collapse. Well okay, maybe just the buffalo wings. But the gelid lutefisk-like consistency of the bubble teas I have tasted put me off ever trying them again. And buffalo wings seem to me to be a conspiracy to take everything potentially greasy, messy-in-a-not-good-way, and just plain gross, about a food and turn it up to 11. Call it Qulippothic Chicken.

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